THE BOOKSTALL
P O Box 4037
Walnut Creek ,Ca 94596-0037
(925 947 1379
e-mail: books@bookstallsf.com
By appointment
Henry and Louise Moises, Proprietors
Members of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America
Founded in 1975
Appraisals
Collection Development
Book Talks
1. The best way to determine the edition of the Oz titles which you own is by comparing them to the bibliography: Bibliographia Oziana. We have the bibliography available for sale.
2. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was first printed in 1900 and published by Geo.(George) M. Hill. There are several state of the First edition, but they are all published by Hill.
All other publishers are later printings, or different editions.
The second edition was published in by Bobbs-Merrill under a the title The New Wizard of
Oz, but the text is basically the same as the first edition. The binding and illustrations
differ from the First Edition, and this second edition was also reprinted and has various
states. The best way to determine what edition of the Wizard that you have is to consult the
bibliography.
3. Oz books were reprinted hundreds of times. The dates on the books were never
changed. So if the book was printed in 1910 or 1950 the dates will be the same. All of the
Oz books have complicated histories with changes occurring in number of plates, bindings,
grouping of pages, etc. The best way to determine these variations is to compare the actual
book to the bibliography, Bibliography Oziana.
4. All of the early Oz books came with 12 color plates or more, except the Road to Oz and
Ozma of Oz which had color pages and/or colored text. Reprints of the Oz books occurred
with no internal color plates. Captain Salt, the 30th Oz book, and all subsequent volumes of
the series, were published without color plates.
5. Baum wrote the first 14 titles, there after, Ruth Plumly Thompson wrote numbers 15 through 23, followed by authors John R. Neill, Jack Snow, Rachel Cosgrove & Eloise McGraw & Lauren Wagner.
6. The only OZ title illustrated by W.W. Denslow was the first book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the later editions & printings of that title. Denslow did illustrate other non-Oz books for Baum. The main illustrator of the Oz series is John R. Neill.
7. There are 40 titles in the official count of "original Oz books". There are also other additions, such as Who's Who In Oz and later titles printed by the International Wizard of Oz Club, which are not included in the 40 titles.
8. THE BEST WAY TO LEARN ABOUT THE OZ BOOKS AND THEIR COMPLICATED HISTORY IS TO CONSULT: THE BIBLIOGRAPHY .