Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story by Evan I. Schwartz
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(Hardcover)
- Pub. Date: April 2009
- 400pp
- Sales Rank: 29,607
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: April 2009
- Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Format: Hardcover, 400pp
- Sales Rank: 29,607
- ISBN-13: 9780547055107
- ISBN: 0547055102
Synopsis
A groundbreaking new look at an American icon, THE WIZARD OF OZ
Finding Oz tells the remarkable tale behind one of the world’s most enduring and best loved stories. Offering profound new insights into the true origins and meaning of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 masterwork, it delves into the personal turmoil and spiritual transformation that fueled Baum’s fantastical parable of the American Dream. Prior to becoming an impresario of children’s adventure tales—the J. K. Rowling of his age—Baum failed at a series of careers and nearly lost his soul before setting out on a journey of discovery that would lead to the Land of Oz. Drawing on original research, Evan Schwartz debunks popular misconceptions and shows how the people, places, and events in Baum’s life gave birth to his unforgettable images and characters. The Yellow Brick Road was real, the Emerald City evoked the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, and Baum’s mother-in-law, the radical women’s rights leader Matilda Joslyn Gage, inspired his dual view of witches—as good and wicked. A narrative that sweeps across late nineteenth-century America, Finding Oz ultimately reveals how failure and heartbreak can sometimes lead to redemption and bliss, and how one individual can ignite the imagination of the entire world.The Washington Post - Charles Matthews
Schwartz does a fine job of unearthing the origins of Oz, and of portraying Baum as very much a man of his times—the era of the vanishing frontier and the uneasy transition from Victorianism into modernity.
More Reviews and RecommendationsBiography
EVAN I. SCHWARTZ is a former award-winning editor at Business Week and the author of The Last Lone Inventor, named one of the seventy-five best business books of all time by Fortune. The idea for Finding Oz came to him while reading Baum's classic to his daughter at bedtime.
Customer Reviews
How Oz became Ozby donna911
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July 14, 2009: What a great book! It read like a novel, but gave an absorbing account of how Baum "created" Oz. From how the Emerald City got the green color, to the true color of the slippers, to where Dorothy and Toto got their names, it's all here. It's also a "how-to" book on how to write your own "Oz". I'm even having my daughter read this since not only are we both avid readers, but she's a budding writer. This book will enable her to glean from everyday life and turn life into art... or an artistic book, or "the" movie of the century!
The best biography so far of L. Frank Baumby dec0558
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April 22, 2009: This is an execellent book: the best biography so far of L. Frank Baum, and a fasinating exploration of the artistic mind and how events and aspects of a writer's every-day life can inspire works of fiction. I loved the Oz books as a kid, and Baum was my favorite writer.
I Also Recommend: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Queen Zixi of IX, The Marvelous Land of Oz (Oz Series #2), Ozma of Oz (Oz Series #3), The Patchwork Girl of Oz (Oz Series #7).
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