"The Wizard of Oz" - The Original Oz Book, "The New Wizard of Oz", by L. Frank Baum with pictures of W.W. Denslow, published by Bobbs-Merrill Company, first printing of the Special Movie Edition with sepia photos of the characters from the MGM 1939 film on the endpapers.

Point of first movie printing: last copyright, 1903 by Baum and Denslow & by The Bobbs-Merrill Company [second printing has additional copyright dated 1939].

Original pictorial green cloth hard cover (a little wear and soiling, mostly spine: see picture); 7.1/4 x 9.3/4", 208 pages + 8 color + 8 b/w plates and many text illustrations, very little soiling, a few corner folds, good++/ very good condition.

This is the scarce movie edition containing Baum's complete original text of Wizard of Oz on which the famous Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie was based. A very nice copy of the movie edition released in conjunction with the MGM movie starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Frank Morgan, Burt Larh, Jack Haley, Billy Burke, and Margaret Hamilton. 1st state printing with illustrated endpapers showing sepia stills from the movie and black bands on spine.

"Folk lore, 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 bloodcurdling incident 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 incident. Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to pleasure children today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out. L. Frank Baum, Chicago, April, 1900."

The illustrator, William Wallace Denslow was born in Philadelphia on May 5, 1856. By the time he turned twenty, he was drawing advertising art and working for magazines and newspapers all over the country. He gained a national reputation, and set up studio in Chicago in the 1890s. There, he met L. Frank Baum, and the two helped inspire each other's creativity on a number of projects. He also did illustrations for Elbert Hubbard at his famous Roycroft Shop, and in general became one of the most well-known and prolific American artists of the turn of the century.

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