Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author best known for his children's books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels. He wrote 14 novels in the Oz series, plus 41 other novels (not including four lost, unpublished novels), 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen; the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book became a landmark of 20th-century cinema.
Baum's avowed intentions with the Oz books and his other fairy tales was to retell tales such as those which are found in the works of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, make them in an American vein, update them, avoid stereotypical characters such as...More
Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author best known for his children's books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels. He wrote 14 novels in the Oz series, plus 41 other novels (not including four lost, unpublished novels), 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen; the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book became a landmark of 20th-century cinema.
Baum's avowed intentions with the Oz books and his other fairy tales was to retell tales such as those which are found in the works of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, make them in an American vein, update them, avoid stereotypical characters such as dwarfs or genies, and remove the association of violence and moral teachings.
Another traditional element that Baum intentionally omitted was the emphasis on romance. He considered romantic love to be uninteresting to young children, as well as largely incomprehensible.
