John Griogair Bell – Arlecchino Malbenvolio

Magical Work in Oz

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Table of Contents
Introduction	Magical Work in Oz
"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"	Book One
"The Marvelous Land of Oz"	Book Two
"Ozma of Oz"	Book Three
"Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz"	Book Four
"The Road to Oz"	Book Five
"The Emerald City of Oz"	Book Six
References	Full Citations and Bibliography
Resources	Links and Connections

Referernces

Topics on this page
Stack	Author's recent Oz reading list
Citations	Full citations for site
Bibliography	Selected Bibliography

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I created this amazon (us) wishlist of Oz books and media.

Where to start? I would recommend reading Baum's first book, of course. Originally I recommended that unless you're wanting to read through them all perhaps skip to Patchwork Girl, book 7, because it is supposed to be different and much loved. However, I now realize that Baum wrote a natural conclusion into the end of book six, and so the first six books have a special connection. Also, after working through the first six books, I feel they are all good, but that I would highly recommend the second book, Ozma in Oz. For me the second book was the most interesting and engaging even over the first book.

On the cinema side of things, I recommend the 3 disc collection of the MGM Oz since it includes not just the movie but also several of the old black and white & silent films that came before. I definitely also recommend Return to Oz, as it shows much more of the other stories and has Nicol Williamson as the Nome King and Fairuza Balk as Dorothy. And, while this may seem to be unlikely, the Muppet version of The Wizard of Oz is actually more in line with the book than the old MGM movie.

But, remember, stick with words and graphics from the books and materials that are public domain if you're going to reproduce them. For example, of the print editions of the copyright lapsed stories, I think the quality of the Dover editions is excellent for scanning and turning into clip art, etc ... All of the Baum books in Oz are public domain, and some of the later books by other authors as well. (Here's a FAQ that discusses this: Are the Oz books still under copyright?)

Several years ago, I read the essay "A Good Little Girl Like You" in Seasons of the Witch by Gail Griffin. I absolutely recommend this essay to everyone. It's an excellent analysis of the Oz story through the lens of feminist critique.

I've just finished these in the last couple of months:

• Lost Girls by Alan Moore, Melinda Gebbie (Dirty, dirty, dirty! Alternate history of Dorothy, Wendy & Alice in a 3 book graphic novel series)
• Spiritual Journeys along the Yellow Brick Road by Darren Main (Skip it. An extended mixed metaphor, and pedestrian)
• All Things Oz : The Wonder, Wit, and Wisdom of The Wizard of Oz by Linda Sunshine (Coffee table worthy. Not great but an interesting, easy read with lots of images, quotes and short stories.)
• Spiritual Symbolism in the Wizard of Oz: The Soul's Journey on the Golden Path by Javier J. Farias (Pretty engaging analysis! I definitely recommend this one.)
• The Historian's Wizard of Oz: Reading L. Frank Baum's Classic as a Political and Monetary Allegory by Ranjit S. Dighe (Slightly dense political, historical, and economic analysis. Includes full text of the 1st book, only slightly annotated, and several of the essays can be found online elsewhere. I don't recommend this unless you're really into this kind of thing, but if you are then you'll probably really grok it.)

And, I've just started in on:

• The Wisdom of Oz: Reflections of a Jungian Sandplay Therapist by Gita Dorothy Morena

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Full Citations

As I finish noting citations on all the other pages, I'll collect them here.

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Selected Bibliography

This will become a bibliography of sources that have informed this work. This may end up being redundant to the citations as I do more work on including connections in the text.

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