Introduction.

Name: The Wizard of Oz - Introduction.
Author: L. Frank Baum

FOLKLORE, LEGENDS, MYTHS AND FAIRY TALES have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations.

Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as "historical" in the children’s library; for the time has come for a series of newer "wonder tales" in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incidents.

Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.

L. FRANK BAUM.

Chicago, April, 1900.

Contents:

Related Resources

L. Frank Baum
Children's Literature

Download Options

Title: The Wizard of Oz

Select an option:

*Note: A download may not start for up to 60 seconds.

Email Options

Title: The Wizard of Oz

Select an option:

Email addres:

*Note: It may take up to 60 seconds for for the email to be generated.

Chicago: L. Frank Baum, "Introduction.," The Wizard of Oz Original Sources, accessed April 1, 2025, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=6RNLF39FTNUK3GG.

MLA: Baum, L. Frank. "Introduction." The Wizard of Oz, Original Sources. 1 Apr. 2025. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=6RNLF39FTNUK3GG.

Harvard: Baum, LF, 'Introduction.' in The Wizard of Oz. Original Sources, retrieved 1 April 2025, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=6RNLF39FTNUK3GG.