The Wizard of Oz - Tapa dura

This is the story of Dorothy and her little dog Toto, who are carried away from Kansas by a cyclone and transported to the wonderful world of Oz. She meets three companions - the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion - and the three journey to the Emerald City of Oz to ask the Wizard of Oz to give them their hearts' desires, which in Dorothy's case is to return home to Kansas. On their way to Oz and while fulfilling the tasks that the surprising Wizard asks of them they encounter witches, winged monkeys, the Deadly Desert, fighting trees and magic shoes. This edition is evocatively illustrated with the original drawings of W. W. Denslow, with an Afterword by Ned Halley.

Lyman Frank Baum was born in 1856 in Chittenango in the state of New York. Educated mostly at home due to ill health, he was encouraged by his wealthy father to pursue his early interests in journalism and playwriting. He started his first magazine aged fifteen, had his own theatre at twenty-four and worked for many newspapers and periodicals before turning to children's fiction with stories he had made up for his own four sons. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900, was his third bestselling book in as many years, and launched the series of Oz titles. Baum had moved with his family to Hollywood following the huge success of the books and stage adaptations. His own Oz Film Manufacturing Company failed to capitalize on the stories, and the hugely popular movie The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland, was not made until twenty years after Baum's death in 1939.