Baum Lyman Frank (eng. Lyman Frank Baum; May 15, 1856 - May 6, 1919), American writer, "creator" of the magical land of Oz.

The famous American science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, an ardent admirer of Baum's series, noted that in these tales "solid sweet buns, honey and summer holidays." Carroll's Wonderland compared to Oz "cold porridge arithmetic at six in the morning, pouring ice water and long sitting at the desk. According to Bradbury, Wonderland is preferred by intellectuals, and dreamers choose Oz: "Wonderland is what we are, and Oz is what we would like to become."

How can you talk if you have no brains? Dorothy asked.
“I don’t know,” the Scarecrow answered, “but those who have no brains are very fond of talking. (from The Wizard of Oz)

Baum Lyman Frank

The name of this magical land, according to the Baum family legend, was born by chance. On a May evening in 1898, Baum was telling his and the neighbor's children another fairy tale, composing it on the go. Someone asked where all this is happening. Baum looked around the room, looked at the home filing cabinet with drawers A-N and O-Z, and said, "In the Land of Oz."

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was published in 1900 and was so loved by readers that Baum decided to continue the story of a wonderful country. Readers were looking forward to new stories, but, having released the sixth tale in 1910, the author decided to take a break. He published two tales about the girl Trot and Captain Bill, which were generally well received by readers, but they could not think that the story of Oz was completed.

Letters were sent with protests, with proposals to return to their favorite characters. Actually, fans of Sherlock Holmes reacted about the same when Conan Doyle rebelled and decided to part with his hero. The insidious plans of both writers were doomed to failure. Readers took over - both Conan Doyle and Baum returned to their series.

No, the heart is much better, - the Tin Woodman stood his ground. - Brains do not make a person happy, and there is nothing better in the world than happiness. (from The Wizard of Oz)

Baum Lyman Frank

Baum left fourteen Oz stories. Perhaps he would have written even more, but death from a heart attack confused all the cards of the Court Historian of Oz. However, reader love has turned the dot into an ellipsis. Also in 1919, Reilly & Lee, a publishing house specializing in the Oz story, commissioned Ruth Plumley Thompson, a twenty-year-old journalist from Philadelphia, to continue the series.

Ruth Thompson fulfilled her task well, and as for the number of titles that came out from under her pen, here she surpassed Baum himself. The tradition of "continuance" did not die out - a variety of writers took over the baton. Tried his luck in this area and the illustrator of most of Baum's lifetime editions, John Neal, who offered readers three of his stories.

A new surge of interest in Baum came at the end of the fifties. At the initiative of a thirteen-year-old schoolboy from New York, in 1957, the International Club of the Wizard of Oz was created. The club exists to this day and has its own periodical, which, as you might guess, deals with the details of life in the magical Land of Oz and latest publications on this burning topic.

In all our world, there is nothing more beautiful than the happy face of a child.

Baum Lyman Frank

In the same year of 1939, when Americans lined up outside movie theaters to watch the Hollywood version of The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland as Dorothy, Alexander Volkov retold the series' first tale in Russian. On the whole, he kept to the original quite carefully, although he omitted a few scenes (the episode with the Warring Trees, the story of the Flying Monkeys, the visit to Porcelain Land). Subsequently, Volkov proposed his own series, inspired by Baum's motives.

The real discovery of Baum in Russia, however, falls on the nineties. The first sign was a book published in 1991 in the Moscow Worker, which included the second, third and thirteenth tales of the series, and a little later a translation of the Wizard was proposed, where Volkov's Ellie gave way to Baum's Dorothy and the text appeared in its original form - without cuts and additions.

Years of life: from 05/15/1856 to 05/06/1919

Writer and journalist, classic of children's literature. Among their compatriots who wrote and write in the genre literary fairy tale, Lyman Frank Baum to this day remains the brightest personality. Fairy tales are just a small part of the author's work, but it is thanks to them that the author entered the history of US literature.

Lyman Frank Baum was born in Chittenango, New York. Frank had very little chance of ever reaching the age of three. Doctors already in the first year of his life did not hide the truth from his parents: the baby had a congenital heart disease. And only a calm, measured and happy life can save him, preferably not in big city, but the countryside.

By the time Frank was born, the writer's father, Benjamin, was a cooper who made barrels for oil. It was those that were called "barrels" due to the fact that just so much oil was placed in them. But the seventh child became like a happy talisman: soon Benjamin from a cooper became a seller of black gold; and his business went uphill so rapidly that he became rich in a short time. Father could let the teachers themselves come to Frank: he did not go to school. Frank was such a bookworm that he soon overcame the entire far from small library of his father. Frank's favorites were Charles Dickens and William Thackeray. Dickens was still alive at this point, so all the novelties that came out from the pen of the classic were immediately delivered to Frank. Such a passion for his son was a source of special pride for his father. He told everyone: “My Frank these books are cracking like nuts!”.

Frank met his 14th birthday happy: the father came to his son's room in the morning and brought him a very large gift - it was a typewriter. Quite a rarity at the time. On the same day, Frank and his younger brother already delighted their parents with the first family newspaper. And then the newspaper, which later grew into a magazine, began to be published regularly. In it, in addition to the family chronicle, there was also fiction - Frank often wrote fairy tales for the younger ones ...

At the age of 17, the future writer began to publish a completely adult magazine. Since his second hobby, after books, was philately, the pages of the new edition were devoted to the history of stamps, various auctions, and travel.

Frank himself was truly restless - whoever he just did not work in his youth. He started as a reporter, was the director of a bookstore, studied for two years at a military school, where he experienced an almost physical disgust for the drill. Then he decided to become a farmer, raised poultry, and at the same time published a magazine dedicated to poultry farming. But soon he returned to the city, became a producer of a number of theaters; several times went on stage, playing in performances.

In 1881, Frank fell in love with the charming Maud. The somewhat frivolous young man, with his head in the clouds, did not seem to Maud's parents an exceptionally successful match. The girl said that she would not go for anyone else but Frank. So, on November 9, 1882, Frank and Maud got married. They had four children, for whom Baum began to write fairy tales; at first they were oral. Frank admitted to Maud that he really did not want children to learn life from the "evil tales of the Brothers Grimm."

In 1899, Baum published his first book, Uncle Goose's Tales. In memory of how he raised Christmas geese in his youth. A year later, his famous story "The Wizard of Oz" was published. There are no rich and poor in Oz, no money, wars, diseases, life here is a celebration of sociability and friendliness. Good in Baum always takes precedence over the power of evil, and evil itself, in most cases, turns out to be "fake", illusory. Baum has repeatedly said that he wants to create a non-terrible fairy tale, in which - in contrast to the classical models - "miracles and joy were preserved, and grief and horror were discarded." The Land of Oz is a land of dreams, sharply contrasted by the author with the withered, gray Kansas prairie, from where the journey of the heroine, the girl Dorothy, begins. In the words of one of Baum's researchers, Oz is an ordinary American farm, where everything suddenly became extraordinary. The world invented by the author combines the traditional attributes of fairy-tale folklore with concrete examples American rural life. The influence of L. Carroll on Baum is obvious, but the differences between the English and American storytellers are no less obvious. In contrast to Wonderland, where Alice has to wade through logical traps, ironic intricacies of words and concepts, which indirectly reflected very real life relationships, conventions and prejudices of British life, Oz is a blissful country where conflicts, contradictions, shadow sides of life are canceled. The famous American science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury, an ardent fan of Baum's series, noted that in these tales "solid sweet buns, honey and summer holidays." Carroll's Wonderland, compared to Oz, "cold porridge, arithmetic at six in the morning, pouring ice water and long sitting at the desk." According to Bradbury, Wonderland is preferred by intellectuals, and dreamers choose Oz: "Wonderland is what we are, and Oz is what we would like to become."

Readers were looking forward to the author's new stories, but, having released the sixth tale in 1910, Baum decided to take a break. He published two tales about the girl Trot and Captain Bill, which were, in general, well received by readers, but they could not think that the story of Oz was completed. Letters were sent with protests, with proposals to return to their favorite characters. So, a few years later, the author wrote a sequel - "The Land of Oz".

Every year for Christmas, American children received from the author another story about a wonderful country created by his imagination.

Baum's fairy tales have been filmed and staged many times. Baum's magical story quickly spread around the world. It was translated into several languages, and only in our country almost no one heard about the author of Dorothy and Oz. Alexander Melentievich Volkov, taking Baum's "saga" as a basis, re-arranged it in his own interpretation. Volkov's work was called "The Wizard of Oz" and appeared on the bookshelf in 1939 when Americans lined up outside movie theaters to see the Hollywood version of "The Wizard of Oz" with Judy Garland as Dorothy.

Over the course of 19 years of writing, Frank wrote 62 books, 14 of which were dedicated to the Wizarding Land of Oz, 24 books were written exclusively for girls and 6 for boys. In the United States, the beginning of the 20th century was marked by the "Baum boom" - it was decided to film his book; the author personally participated not only in writing the script, but also in staging the film. In total, during the life of the writer, 6 films were shot based on his "saga". In addition, from 1902 to 1911, according to this book, the musical was staged 293 times on Broadway! Perhaps Baum would write more more fairy tales about the Land of Oz, but death from a heart attack confused all the cards of the Court Historian of Oz. May 15, 1919 numerous relatives of the famous American writer, Lyman Frank Baum, had to get together for his next birthday. It was not a round date, but, about a month before the event, invitation cards were sent to the guests, and by the end of April, they had already been received by the addressees. Then none of the invitees knew yet that they would gather at Baum's house a little earlier and on a completely different occasion - on May 6, 1919, Frank's heart stopped. Until his 63rd birthday, the writer, beloved by many generations of children, never lived.

The tales of Oz were, and still are, so popular that after Baum's death, attempts were made to continue the fairy tale. Reader's love turned the dot into an ellipsis: a variety of writers took the baton. A new surge of interest in Baum came at the end of the fifties. At the initiative of a thirteen-year-old schoolboy from New York, in 1957, the International Wizard of Oz Club was created. The club exists to this day and has its own periodical, which deals with the details of life in the magical Land of Oz and the latest publications on this topic.

The real discovery of Baum in Russia falls on the nineties. The first sign was a book published in 1991 in the Moscow Worker, which included the second, third and thirteenth tales of the series, and a little later, the translation of The Wizard of Oz was proposed.

Baum's fairy tales are imbued with an optimistic faith: everything that a person can dream of is inherent in himself. Baum was convinced that humanity and morality are not invested in people - they are awakened. As well as the fact that "a dream - a daydream when the eyes are open and the brains are working with might and main - should lead to the improvement of the world. A child with a developed imagination, over time, will grow into a man or a woman with a developed imagination and, therefore, will be able to to nurture, to lead civilization forward."

On the set of The Wizard of Oz, MGM's dressers were looking for a well-worn but elegant coat to dress the wizard in. After rummaging through local second-hand clothing stores, they found such a coat and, by an incredible coincidence, it turned out that it had previously belonged to the author of the book "The Wizard of Oz" Frank Baum (L. Frank Baum).

Bibliography

* Stories of Mother Goose in prose (1897)
* Father Goose: his book (1899)

* (Wizard of Oz, Great Wizard of Oz) (1900)
* The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1092)
* (The Wonderful Country of Oz, Oz) (1904)
* (Princess Ozma of Oz) (1907)
* Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908)
* (1909)
* (1910)
* The Patchwork Girl of Oz (The Patchwork Girl of Oz) (1913)
* Tik-Tok from Oz (1914)
* (The Scarecrow of Oz) (1915)
* (1916)
* The Lost Princess of Oz (The Lost Princess of Oz) (1917)
* The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918)
* (1919)
* Glinda of Oz (1920)

* (1901)

Screen adaptations of works, theatrical performances

Screen adaptations
* The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, based on the musical directed by Otis Turner
* The Wizard of Oz Musical film directed by Victor Flemin
* Journey Back to Oz, Animated Movie official sequel to The Wizard of Oz
* The Wizard, a film musical based on the Broadway musical directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross
* Return to Oz
* iron Man(miniseries)

Briefly about the article: It turns out we know very little about Oz creator Lyman Frank Baum. How did it happen that his first book was a treatise on chickens? Why did the descendants of the writer apologize to the Indians? What lessons does Baum teach project writers? We may not like the answers to these questions, but you can't throw words out of a song.

Mnogostanochnik from the project O.Z.

FRANK BAUM

Once upon a time there was a kind storyteller Lyman Frank Baum. He dreamed of wonderful countries where kind and evil wizards, talking animals and funny shorties, - he came up with the land of Oz, which is now so loved by children around the world ... Oh, what sugary molasses! And, most importantly, it was not like that, quite like that. How did it happen that Baum's first book was a treatise on chickens? Why did the descendants of the writer apologize to the Indians? What lessons does Baum teach project writers? You may like the answers to these questions, but you can’t throw words out of a song.

It is enough to study the biography of Baum for the myth of the good storyteller to melt away, like the Wicked Witch, whom Dorothy doused with water from a bucket. Baum dreamed of dreaming, but not so much about fairy-tale kingdoms as about earning money, which explains his persistence in developing a literary vein: in a relatively short time (a little over twenty years), he created six dozen novels, as well as many stories, poems, scripts and more. At the same time, he remained in the history of literature as the author of The Wizard of Oz and its sequels. If Baum was a pioneer, it was in only one area - in the market for young adult novels, in current Western terminology - young adult novels, abbreviated as YA. Of course, such novels appeared in abundance even before Baum, but it was he who made every effort to commercialize this area, turning Oz into the first fantasy project - and trying to squeeze the maximum profit out of it.

Good Tales they are good because children like them, and in this sense, The Wizard of Oz is an excellent fairy tale. With adults, everything is more complicated: “This book is strangely warm and touching, but no one knows exactly why,” admitted Baum scholar Henry Littlefield. But this casket is easy to open. By and large, Oz suffered the same fate as the Tao, one of the main concepts of Chinese philosophy: every thinker Ancient China used this term in his own way, so that the philosopher Han Yu called Tao an "empty position" that does not have a precisely fixed meaning. So is the land of Oz: everyone sees something of their own in it, and what L. Frank Baum saw in it - and whether he saw at least something - is another question.

Maidens of Arran and the Roosters of Hamburg

Lyman Frank Baum - he did not like his first name and preferred to be called simply Frank - was born on May 15, 1856 in the village of Chittenango, New York (today the inhabitants of this area are proud of their fellow countryman, they annually hold Oz Stravagant festivals with costumed parades and even laid a yellow brick road in 1982). Baum was lucky: he was born in rich family. His father is a businessman German descent, started as a cooper, and made a fortune on Pennsylvania oil. Together with his brothers and sisters (there were nine in all, five survived to adulthood), Baum grew up on his father's estate Rose Lawn, which he remembered all his life as "paradise".

Since Frank, according to his parents, grew up as a sickly dreamer, at the age of twelve he was sent to a military academy, where the boy stayed for two years, after which he returned home. How poor the Baums were can be judged by the following fact from Frank's biography: when the teenager became interested in typography, his father bought him a modest printing press, so that soon Frank and his younger brother Henry began to publish the Rose Lawn Home Magazine. The young man's propensity for entrepreneurship manifested itself even then: the magazine printed ads for which Baum, apparently (cautious biographers notice), took money.

At the age of seventeen, Frank's youthful hobby became a business: he started publishing the magazine "Stamp Collector" and, together with friends, began selling philatelic products. Three years later, the young businessman became seriously interested in breeding, excuse me, Hamburg roosters, which are not at all the fantasy of the hero of the comedy "Gentlemen of Fortune", but a real breed of birds, bred in Hamburg by crossing chickens, geese and turkeys. Since 1880, Baum has been publishing the journal Facts about the Bird, in 1886 he published the first book - not a fairy tale, but a brochure about the same Hamburg roosters, about their mating, nutrition and other important matters for poultry farmers. Kurami Baum did not limit himself - he made and sold fireworks, which were in special demand on Independence Day, and at one time worked as a clerk in his brother's haberdashery company.

In addition, Frank constantly tried himself in the theatrical field, but here it was no longer about money, but about passion. The footlight beckoned Baum from his youth until his death. Manil and, as usual, burned. When Frank was living in Lone Rose, the local troupe offered him roles in exchange for sponsorship - the theater needed a wardrobe update - and then cheated. In the end, the father, taking pity on his tormented son, simply built him a theater in Richburg. Frank immediately set to work on the play "The Maid of Arran" based on the novel by William Black "The Princess of Fula": he composed it himself, directed it himself, wrote the music and songs himself, played it himself leading role. The work had a pretentious subtitle "A play that seduces all hearts and leaves an imprint of beauty and nobility on the low nature of man." An undertaking like “he dances, sings himself, sells tickets himself” promised to be successful, but everything ended badly: while Baum and his comrades were touring with the “Maiden of Arran”, the theater burned down, along with costumes and manuscripts of plays, and the fire started during the performance with a prophetic the name "Matches".

In 1882, Baum married and six years later (shortly after his theater failure) settled in the Dakota. He first opened Baum's General Store, but soon went bankrupt because he often sold goods on credit. Then Baum undertook to edit the local newspaper. In December 1890, nine days before the massacre at Wounded Knee, which became the last major battle of the Indian Wars, the future author good fairy tales wrote a column in which he called for the destruction of all Indians so that they would stop annoying white Americans: they say, since we have offended them for centuries, let's offend the redskins completely and wipe out this proud, "untamed and indomitable" people from the face of the earth, threatening our civilization. A piquant detail: journalist Baum wrote the word "destruction" with a spelling mistake - extIrmination. In 2006, Baum's descendants apologized to the Sioux for the writer.

In addition to engaging in acute social journalism, Baum managed to sing in a quartet and enjoy the views of South Dakota, which he would later pass off in a book as views of Kansas (Baum somehow stopped by for only two days). In 1891, the newspaper ordered a long life, and the couple with four sons moved again, now to Chicago, where Frank got a job as a reporter for the Evening Post. For a time he was a traveling salesman, in 1897 he took up a magazine on window dressing and eventually, as in the case of the Hamburg roosters, published a book on this subject, where he justified the use of dressed mannequins and winding mechanisms to attract clientele.

FRANK BAUM'S ADVENTURES IN SHOW BUSINESS

By this point, Baum had already become a children's writer. He himself estimated his talent extremely highly: in Baum's book from the Aunt Jane's Nieces series, published under a pseudonym, a certain film director tells the heroines about storytellers whose books were successfully filmed, and lists them as follows: "Hans Andersen, Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll ". All this would be funny if it were not so sad: Baum's very first fairy tale, later renamed The Amazing Adventures of the Magic Monarch Mo and His People, was published in 1896 under the title " New Country miracles, ”and the reference to Carroll clearly reflected the author’s intention to promote at someone else’s expense.

Books for children were in demand, but Baum did not immediately find his niche. The New Wonderland, with its twisted absurd humor, sold poorly, and in 1897 Frank published the much more traditional Tales of Mother Goose in Prose. The moderate success of this book prompted him to create a sequel: joining forces with the artist William Denslow, Baum published a volume of poems "Daddy Goose: His Book", which became a bestseller. In form it was “poetry of nonsense” a la Edward Lear, in content it was something that now in the West they prefer not to remember: in children's poems, Baum managed to offend blacks, Irish, Italians, Chinese and Indians, and in the next book, Pope The goose also hit the Jews.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with a text by Baum and illustrations by Danslow (they owned the rights to the book on an equal footing), was published in 1900. The story of the Kansas girl Dorothy, who was blown away by a tornado in magical land, where talking stuffed animals, animals and even people made of iron live, at first should have been limited to one book. "The Magician" became a hit, but already next product Baum and Danslow, "Dot and Thoth in Jollyland", disappointed the reader, and then Frank decided to strike while the iron is hot: in 1904 he published the fairy tale "The Wonderful Land of Oz", which took place in the same world. And in 1907, having previously toiled with other projects, Baum returned to Oz completely, writing Ozma of Oz, and since then he has been steadily releasing a book a year (with a break in 1911-1912).

The capitalization of the Land of Oz went in other directions: a year after the publication of The Wizard, Baum, together with the composer Paul Titjens, turned the fairy tale into a musical. Frank, who loved to mythologize events, later recalled that one day a young man in glasses came to him, offering to make a fairy tale theatrical performance, "and wrap everything up ...". In fact, Titjens and Baum were introduced by a Chicago artist who was illustrating another of Frank's creations, and before The Magician they had written two musicals, Octopus and King Midas, which no one wanted to stage. The idea of ​​transferring the plot of the bestseller to the stage was coldly received by Baum, but the musical, which started in 1902, successfully ran on Broadway for many years and earned the authors a fortune. Because of this, Baum forever quarreled with Danslow, who demanded that the profits be divided into three. Incidentally, with money from The Wizard, the artist purchased an island in the Bermuda archipelago and declared it a kingdom, and appointed himself King Danslow I.

The plot of the musical was not the same as the book: the Wicked Witch of the West was not there at all, but the real King Oz appeared, who expelled the Wizard who had usurped power. Moreover, the musical contained references to American politics, in particular, to President Theodore Roosevelt and oil tycoon John Rockefeller. Perhaps this is where the legs grow from the interpretation of the tale as a political pamphlet, which will be discussed below. The continuation of the musical based on the second book of the cycle failed - Dorothy and the Lion were not in the book, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman also disappeared from the musical, so the audience was not inspired by the performance.

Baum tried more than once or twice to end the land of Oz, declaring that this book would be the last, but he did not dare to kill the cash cow. In Frank's brain there were projects one another more fantastic. In 1905, after moving to California, he told in an interview that he had acquired Pedlow Island and wanted to turn it into the Wonderland of Oz amusement park. Biographers have searched in vain for this island, or even for evidence that Baum acquired any islands. One way or another, after the failure of the next musical, he left the idea with the park.

The passion for the theater slowly but surely ruined Baum - his musicals left the stage almost faster than they appeared. Fleeing bankruptcy, Frank transferred all his possessions, including the library and typewriter, to his wife's name, and also sold the rights to books about Oz to M.A. Donahue, who found nothing better than to release their cheap editions and claim that they are much cooler than Baum's new fairy tales. In 1914, Frank took up cinema, founded The Oz Film Manufacturing Company, tried to make films for children, but again went bankrupt and undermined his health. In May 1919, Baum suffered a stroke and died just short of his sixty-third birthday. The following year, his last, fourteenth tale about Oz was published.

DRAFT O.Z., CANONICAL AND APOCRYPHICAL

The exact number of texts about Oz cannot be counted: to Baum's 14 books, 28 novels of the original canon, recognized by the heirs, and hundreds of published "apocrypha" should be added. These include books by the most famous science fiction writers: The Number of the Beast by Robert Heinlein, Sir Harold and the King of the Dwarfs by L. Sprague de Camp, Touring in Oz by Philip Farmer, the novelization of Return to Oz by Joan Vinge and even the fourth volume " dark tower» Stephen King. Roger Baum, great-grandson of L. Frank Baum (11 novels), and March Laumer, older brother of the science fiction writer Keith Laumer (21 books) were especially successful in writing apocrypha. Among publishers, all records are beaten by the conveyor belt of Chris Dulabon, which launched in 1986, which released about a hundred books about Oz from various authors, including adaptations to english fairy tales Alexandra Volkova. Oz also has its own revisionists: in 1995, Gregory Maguire wrote The Witch: The Life and Times of the Western Witch of Oz, the first in a series of "parallel" books based on Baum's fairy tales. main character the novel was an evil sorceress, who received the name Elphaba after the initials of Baum - L.F.B.

BOOKS FOR EVERYONE AND NO ONE WILL GO OFFENDED

As befits a project writer, L. Frank Baum wrote not only under his own name, but also under seven pseudonyms, three of which were female. For example, he published the popular Aunt Jane's Nieces as Edith Van Dyne. Baum approached writing in a business-like manner, striving to target groups. He wrote adventurous novels for adults, such as "The Destiny of the Crown" (with a Brazilian flavor), "Daughters of Destiny" (set in Balochistan, the main character is a Muslim), "The Last Egyptian". For teenagers of different sexes, Baum sold episodes about Sam Steele and Aunt Jane's nieces. For small children, he had an indispensable Papa Goose. Baum even tried to replace The Land of Oz with another fantasy cycle, publishing under his own name " sea ​​fairies” and “Sky Island”, but did not succeed. In the end, everything rested on the land of Oz; Baum even made it a habit to include characters from his other tales, such as Queen Zixi of X-Country and The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, to keep the reader interested in those books too. At the same time, there is no need to talk about any connection of the cycle about Oz: Baum's characters quickly change their appearance and past, even their names can be spelled differently.

Baum's attempt to invade the territory of the NF was also not very successful: the novel "The Key to All Locks" (1901), which the author called "an electric fairy tale", was hardly noticed by critics. According to the plot of the book, teenager Rob Joslin experiments with electricity, entangles the house with a "network of wires" and accidentally summons the Electricity Demon. It turns out that Rob has touched the Electric Key to All Locks, and the Demon must fulfill his nine wishes. Since Rob doesn't know what to ask the Demon, he brings him six gifts of his choice.

Now, a hundred years later, we use two of the six gifts of the Demon - a small tube that hits the offender with an electric discharge, and a device that shows what happened in the world during the day. Other gifts seem just as fantastic: a pill that is enough to get enough for the whole day ahead, clothing that protects against physical impact, a miniature levitator, and even a “character indicator” - a set of glasses that show what this or that person is. However, Baum's fans believe that with these glasses he predicted "augmented reality", that is, reality with virtual elements. Putting on glasses, Rob sees letters on the forehead of a person: K if a person is kind (kind), C - if cruel (cruel), W - if wise (wise), F - if he is a fool (fool), and so on.

The prognostic talent of the writer could be admired, if not for the secondary nature of all the gifts of the Demon. After the advent of radio, only the lazy did not think about sending an image (in 1884, Paul Nipkov proposed "mechanical television", in 1907 Boris Rosing patented a cathode ray tube), other ideas were also in the air, and Baum could borrow glasses from Andersen's fairy tale " Whatever they come up with." Baum's fans are delighted with the cordless telephone described in the Tik-Tok of Oz novel, but the trouble is that in the fairy tale itself it is lost among all the Magic Binoculars, Magic Pictures and Magic Magnets. What's really new about The Key to All Locks is the teenager's rejection of the last three gifts: "Someone will think I'm a fool for giving up these inventions," Rob thinks, "but I'm the kind of person who knows when to stop. A fool is one who does not learn from his mistakes. I'm learning from my own, so I'm fine. It’s not easy to be ahead of your time by a century!” Such a critical attitude towards progress before the First World War was rare, especially in books for children.

INTERPRETATION OF VISIONS

Against the backdrop of Baum's massive literary failures, the resounding success of The Wizard of Oz is puzzling. How does this book take readers? Over the past hundred years, this phenomenon has been tried to be explained more than once or twice. Historians, theosophists, and Freudians were engaged in the interpretation of the tale, especially pointing out that Freud's book The Interpretation of Dreams was published in the same year as The Magician. Freud's Baum's tale looks unattractive: the starting point of Dorothy's adventures is supposedly a scene not described by Baum, in which the girl peeps at adults at night, because they sleep in the same room: “In one corner was placed a large bed Uncle Henry and Aunt Em, and in the other, Dorothy's little bed." What she sees shocks Dorothy, and she projects her fear into a whirlwind, which is quite phallic in shape. Dorothy's conditional mother, Aunt Em, splits into two figures in the fairy tale - the Good Witch of the South and the Wicked Witch of the West, whom Dorothy crushes with a house. As for the provisional father, he, of course, becomes the Wizard himself, named Oz. Emerald City, in which there are many vertical towers, as well as a broom - these are symbols of everything that you thought about.

Then the Freudians move on to the silver slippers and the Wizard behind the screen... but, perhaps, enough mockery of the fairy tale: L. Frank Baum clearly had nothing of the sort in mind. The same screen does not carry any secret meaning: in the Baum house it was customary to put a Christmas tree behind similar screens, and Frank loved to talk with relatives, while remaining "invisible". Baum saw the yellow brick road with his own eyes as a teenager, the Emerald City may have been inspired by the White City built in Chicago in 1893 when the World's Fair was held there, and so on.

Historians interpret the tale in their own way. Professor Henry Littlefield theorized that The Wizard of Oz is a parable about populism in American politics in the 1890s. The Emerald City is the Capitol, the Wizard is the President of the United States, the Cowardly Lion is populist leader William Jennings Bryan, the Woodcutter personifies the proletarians, the Scarecrow is the farmers. In the 1990s, economists further developed this theory: it is clear that the yellow brick road and silver shoes indicate the demand of populists to freely mint gold and silver coins. And the dog's name, Toto, points to the word teetotaler, "teetotaler" - supporters of the ban on alcohol were allies of populists. Well, why the city of Emerald, that is, green, is clearer than clear: this is the color of American banknotes. Baum was a journalist, he was well versed in politics. To which Theosophists, who are proud that the author of The Magician was interested in Theosophy, remark that ...

But maybe this is the key to the success of The Wizard of Oz? a simple story about a girl who wanted to return home, about her friends who lacked faith in themselves, and about the Wizard, who turned out to be an ordinary person, you can fill with any meanings if you wish. Why not see in this tale also a parable about fantastic literature? Judge for yourself: the Woodcutter symbolizes science fiction (in fact, he is a cyborg), the Lion - fantasy (a talking animal), the Scarecrow - horror (with such and such a name). SF is often accused of not having a heart, fantasy is being cowardly escapism, horror is rarely smart. Well, the Wizard is, of course, great literature, the notorious bolliter, which in fact cannot give anything to anyone.

A well-known classic of children's literature, whose books have been filmed dozens of times, have given rise to many imitations and parodies.

Biography

Around the same time, Baum became interested in theater, but this hobby brought a lot of trouble. He was invited to a visiting troupe with one condition - the costumes had to be their own. Baum bought the most expensive costumes and wigs, but they went to the chests of other actors, and Frank got roles without words. However, this deception did not break Baum, and some time later he became an actor, as well as the author of melodramas and the owner of several semi-professional theaters that roamed the Midwest and played for farmers, lumberjacks, and oil workers - in conditions little resembling theatrical. Once, Baum recalled, they were giving Hamlet on a stage built hastily from boards. The Ghost King took only a few steps and collapsed into the gap. The inexperienced public, mistaking this for a spectacular trick, began to demand its repetition and did not calm down until the actor threatened to sue for bruises from repeated falls. The carefree years of acting youth remained the happiest in Baum's life. However, they soon ended. Marriage and the birth of a son made me think about a more solid occupation.

It was then that fate, which had indulged him until now, began to beat painfully. Bankruptcy and death of his father, then a fire that destroyed all the theater property at once. I had to start from scratch. Then, following the example of many compatriots, the small Baum family went to the West in search of happiness. The Dakota, where they arrived in 1888, was an almost completely bare prairie, dissected by a newly built railroad. The "city" of Aberdeen had about three thousand inhabitants - mostly young, with little means and high hopes, attracted here by rumors of gold and fertile land. As for Frank Baum, he had a special enrichment plan: with the last money he opened the first department store in the city, where all sorts of things were sold at a low price - Chinese lanterns, pots, sweets, bicycles. The store was a wild success with children: they were attracted here not so much by ice cream as by the magical stories that the seller told without fail and with sincere enthusiasm. He never turned down a loan. The number of debtors grew, and Baum's modest capital dwindled. On New Year's Eve 1890, the store closed forever, which did not stop the bankrupt owner from throwing a party to celebrate the birth of his second son.

A month later, filled with new hopes, he took over as editor of the Dakota Pioneer newspaper. Baum delivered materials to the room almost single-handedly. Given the peculiarities of his character, it is not surprising that the humorous column succeeded most of all in the newspaper. By the way, the following joke flashed in the newspaper on the topic of the day:

"Is there food for cattle?" - ask the poor fellow-farmer. “No,” he answers, “yes, I came up with the idea of ​​putting green glasses on her and feeding her with sawdust.”

Years later, this “trick” was remembered by Baum the storyteller: the Wizard will order everyone who enters his city to put on green glasses that transform any glass into an emerald.

Baum did not shy away from political journalism. In an 1891 editorial in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, he approved of the massacre of Indians at Wounded Knee, writing:

"Pioneer" has already stated that our security requires the complete destruction of the Indians. Having oppressed them for centuries, we should, in order to protect our civilization, once again oppress them and finally wipe out these wild and untamed creatures from the face of the earth. This is the guarantee of the future security of our settlers and soldiers who have found themselves under incompetent command. Otherwise, in the future we will have problems with the Redskins, no less than in previous years.

original text(English)

The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilizations, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.

The Dakota Pioneer newspaper lasted a little over a year. Grieving over the next ruin, the family at the same time rejoiced: the third son was born.

Unable to find happiness in the West, the Baums moved back East to booming Chicago. Lack of money and disorder dragged along.

It was then that Baum came up with the idea to try writing for children. In 1897 he published " (English)Russian are witty variations on the themes of traditional children's fables. The experience turned out to be successful. But a serious turn in his fate will be indicated later, when, first in the imagination, then on paper (Baum kept the stub of the pencil with which that first draft was written as a relic), a fairy tale was born about the girl Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, the Wizard and their amazing adventures in a fairy-tale land. The country was still unnamed.

The name, according to the Baum family legend, was born on a May evening in 1898, when, as usual, their own and neighbor's children gathered in the living room and the owner of the house, improvising on the go, told one of his fairy tales. "Where was all this, Mr. Baum?" asked a childish voice. “But it was in a country called ... - the narrator's gaze, running around the room in search of clues, accidentally fell on an old bureau in the corner with drawers for home file cabinets, the letters A - N were on the top, O - Z on the bottom. - ... Oz! » So the newborn was named fairy world. Baum himself did not attach any importance to this event at first. But child readers reacted differently: they sent letters, came, came to visit and demanded that the unsuccessful actor, merchant, journalist and poultry farmer finally go about their business - they demanded a new fairy tale about Oz. Baum gave up, though not immediately. It was not until 1904 that a sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) was born. New fairy tale called "The Land of Oz". There is no Dorothy in it, but there are her friends the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, there are also new extraordinary characters: Pumpkinhead Jack, a ridiculous glorious creature built from poles and pumpkins and animated with the help of magic powder; Goats, thanks to the same powder, turned into a dashing horse; the smug pedant the Wobbler Beetle and the boy Tip are actually the bewitched Princess Ozma, the rightful ruler of Oz.

Bibliography

He has written dozens of children's books. The most famous:

• 1897 - Stories of Mother Goose in prose (English)Russian
• 1899 - Papa Goose: his book (English)Russian
• 1919, published posthumously - The Magic of Oz
• 1920, published posthumously - Glinda of Oz

see also

Write a review on "Baum, Lyman Frank"

Notes

Links

• in the library of Maxim Moshkov
• in the project "Keepers of fairy tales"

Country as a whole Books by L.F. Baum The authors Illustrators Composers Characters Productions TV productions Computer games There was no room in the upper rooms of the inn: everyone was busy. Pierre went into the yard and, covering himself with his head, lay down in his carriage. As soon as Pierre laid his head on the pillow, he felt that he was falling asleep; but suddenly, with the clarity of almost reality, a boom, boom, boom of shots was heard, groans, screams, the slapping of shells were heard, there was a smell of blood and gunpowder, and a feeling of horror, fear of death seized him. He opened his eyes in fear and lifted his head from under his overcoat. Everything was quiet outside. Only at the gate, talking to the janitor and slapping through the mud, was some kind of orderly. Above Pierre's head, under the dark underside of the plank canopy, doves fluttered from the movement he made while rising. A peaceful, joyful for Pierre at that moment, strong smell of an inn, the smell of hay, manure and tar was poured throughout the courtyard. Between the two black awnings one could see a clear starry sky. “Thank God that this is no more,” thought Pierre, again closing his head. “Oh, how terrible fear is, and how shamefully I gave myself up to it! And they…they were firm, calm all the time, to the very end…” he thought. In Pierre's understanding, they were soldiers - those who were on the battery, and those who fed him, and those who prayed to the icon. They - these strange, hitherto unknown to him, they were clearly and sharply separated in his thoughts from all other people. “To be a soldier, just a soldier! thought Pierre, falling asleep. – Enter this common life with your whole being, imbue with what makes them so. But how to throw off all this superfluous, devilish, all the burden of this outer man? One time I could be it. I could run away from my father as I wished. Even after the duel with Dolokhov, I could have been sent as a soldier.” And in Pierre's imagination flashed a dinner at the club where he summoned Dolokhov, and a benefactor in Torzhok. And now Pierre is presented with a solemn dining box. This lodge takes place in the English Club. And someone familiar, close, dear, is sitting at the end of the table. Yes it is! This is a benefactor. “Yes, he died? thought Pierre. - Yes, he died; but I didn't know he was alive. And how sorry I am that he died, and how glad I am that he is alive again! On one side of the table sat Anatole, Dolokhov, Nesvitsky, Denisov and others like him (the category of these people was just as clearly defined in Pierre’s soul in a dream, as was the category of those people whom he called them), and these people, Anatole, Dolokhov loudly shouted, sang; but behind their cry was heard the voice of the benefactor, speaking incessantly, and the sound of his words was as significant and continuous as the roar of the battlefield, but it was pleasant and comforting. Pierre did not understand what the benefactor was saying, but he knew (the category of thoughts was just as clear in the dream) that the benefactor spoke of goodness, of the possibility of being what they were. And they from all sides, with their simple, kind, firm faces, surrounded the benefactor. But although they were kind, they did not look at Pierre, did not know him. Pierre wanted to draw their attention to himself and say. He got up, but at the same instant his legs became cold and bare. He felt ashamed, and he covered his legs with his hand, from which the overcoat really fell off. For a moment, Pierre, adjusting his overcoat, opened his eyes and saw the same sheds, pillars, courtyard, but all this was now bluish, light and covered with sparkles of dew or frost. “Dawn,” thought Pierre. “But that's not it. I need to listen to and understand the words of the benefactor.” He again covered himself with his overcoat, but there was no longer any dining box or benefactor. There were only thoughts clearly expressed in words, thoughts that someone said or Pierre himself changed his mind. Pierre, later recalling these thoughts, despite the fact that they were caused by the impressions of that day, was convinced that someone outside of him was telling them to him. Never, as it seemed to him, was he in reality able to think and express his thoughts like that. “War is the most difficult subjection of human freedom to the laws of God,” said the voice. – Simplicity is obedience to God; you won't get away from it. And they are simple. They don't say, but they do. The spoken word is silver, and the unspoken is golden. A person cannot own anything while he is afraid of death. And whoever is not afraid of her, everything belongs to him. If there were no suffering, a person would not know the boundaries of himself, would not know himself. The most difficult thing (Pierre continued to think or hear in a dream) is to be able to combine in his soul the meaning of everything. Connect everything? Pierre said to himself. No, don't connect. You can’t connect thoughts, but to connect all these thoughts - that’s what you need! Yes, you need to match, you need to match! Pierre repeated to himself with inner delight, feeling that with these, and only with these words, what he wants to express is expressed, and the whole question that torments him is resolved. - Yes, you need to pair, it's time to pair. - It is necessary to harness, it is time to harness, Your Excellency! Your Excellency, - repeated a voice, - it is necessary to harness, it's time to harness ... It was the voice of the bereytor who woke up Pierre. The sun beat right in Pierre's face. He glanced at the dirty inn, in the middle of which, near the well, the soldiers were watering the thin horses, from which carts rode out through the gates. Pierre turned away in disgust and, closing his eyes, hurriedly fell back into the seat of the carriage. “No, I don’t want this, I don’t want to see and understand this, I want to understand what was revealed to me during sleep. One more second and I would understand everything. What am I to do? Conjugate, but how to conjugate everything? And Pierre felt with horror that the whole meaning of what he saw and thought in a dream was destroyed. The bereator, the coachman and the janitor told Pierre that an officer had arrived with the news that the French had moved near Mozhaisk and that ours were leaving. Pierre got up and, having ordered to lay down and catch up with himself, went on foot through the city. The troops went out and left about ten thousand wounded. These wounded could be seen in the yards and in the windows of houses and crowded in the streets. On the streets near the carts that were supposed to take away the wounded, screams, curses and blows were heard. Pierre gave the wheelchair that had overtaken him to a wounded general he knew and went with him to Moscow. Dear Pierre found out about the death of his brother-in-law and about the death of Prince Andrei. X On the 30th, Pierre returned to Moscow. Almost at the outpost he met the adjutant of Count Rostopchin. “And we are looking for you everywhere,” said the adjutant. “The Count needs to see you. He asks you to come to him immediately on a very important matter. Pierre, without stopping home, took a cab and drove to the commander-in-chief. Count Rostopchin only arrived in town this morning from his country dacha in Sokolniki. The antechamber and reception room of the count's house were full of officials who came at his request or for orders. Vasilchikov and Platov had already seen the count and explained to him that it was impossible to defend Moscow and that it would be surrendered. Although these news were hidden from the inhabitants, the officials, the heads of various departments knew that Moscow would be in the hands of the enemy, just as Count Rostopchin knew it; and all of them, in order to lay down their responsibility, came to the commander-in-chief with questions about how they should deal with the units entrusted to them. While Pierre entered the reception room, the courier, who came from the army, left the count. The courier waved his hand hopelessly at the questions addressed to him, and passed through the hall. While waiting in the waiting room, Pierre looked with tired eyes at the various, old and young, military and civil, important and unimportant officials who were in the room. Everyone seemed dissatisfied and restless. Pierre approached one group of officials, in which one was his acquaintance. After greeting Pierre, they continued their conversation. - How to send and return again, there will be no trouble; and in such a situation one cannot answer for anything. “Why, he writes,” said another, pointing to the printed paper he held in his hand. - That's another matter. This is necessary for the people,” said the first. - What is it? Pierre asked. - And here's a new poster. Pierre took it in his hands and began to read: “The Most Serene Prince, in order to quickly connect with the troops that are coming towards him, crossed Mozhaisk and stood in a strong place where the enemy would not suddenly attack him. Forty-eight cannons with shells have been sent to him from here, and his Serene Highness says that he will defend Moscow to the last drop of blood and is ready to fight even in the streets. You, brothers, do not look at the fact that government offices have been closed: things need to be cleaned up, and we will deal with the villain with our court! When it comes to something, I need fellows, both urban and rural. I'll call a call for two days, but now it's not necessary, I'm silent. Good with an ax, not bad with a horn, and best of all is a triple pitchfork: a Frenchman is not heavier than a sheaf of rye. Tomorrow, after dinner, I am taking Iverskaya to the Ekaterininsky hospital, to the wounded. We will sanctify the water there: they will recover sooner; and I am now healthy: my eye hurt, and now I look both ways. “And the military people told me,” said Pierre, “that it’s impossible to fight in the city and that the position ... “Well, yes, that’s what we’re talking about,” said the first official. - And what does it mean: my eye hurt, and now I look in both? Pierre said. “The count had barley,” said the adjutant, smiling, “and he was very worried when I told him that people came to ask what was the matter with him. And what, count, ”the adjutant suddenly said, turning to Pierre with a smile,“ we heard that you have family concerns? What if the countess, your wife ... “I didn’t hear anything,” Pierre said indifferently. – What did you hear? - No, you know, because they often invent. I say what I heard. – What did you hear? “Yes, they say,” the adjutant said again with the same smile, “that the countess, your wife, is going abroad. Probably nonsense... “Perhaps,” said Pierre, looking absently around him. - And who is this? he asked, pointing to a short old man in a clean blue coat, with a big beard as white as snow, the same eyebrows, and a ruddy face. - This? This is a merchant alone, that is, he is an innkeeper, Vereshchagin. Have you heard this story about the proclamation? - Oh, so this is Vereshchagin! - said Pierre, peering into the firm and calm face of the old merchant and looking for an expression of treachery in him. - It's not him. This is the father of the one who wrote the proclamation,” said the adjutant. - That young one, sits in a hole, and it seems to him that it will be bad. One old man, in a star, and the other, a German official, with a cross around his neck, approached the conversation. “You see,” the adjutant said, “this is complicated story. Appeared then, about two months ago, this proclamation. The Count was brought. He ordered an investigation. Here Gavrilo Ivanovich was looking for, this proclamation was in exactly sixty-three hands. He will come to one: who do you get from? - From that. He goes to: who are you from? etc., we got to Vereshchagin ... an undereducated merchant, you know, a merchant, my dear, - the adjutant said smiling. - They ask him: from whom do you have? And most importantly, we know from whom he has. He has no one else to get from, as from the director's mail. But, apparently, there was a strike between them. He says: from no one, I composed it myself. And they threatened and asked, he stood on that: he composed it himself. So they reported to the Count. The count ordered to call him. "From whom do you have a proclamation?" - "I wrote it myself." Well, you know the Count! the adjutant said with a proud and cheerful smile. - He flared up terribly, and think about it: such impudence, lies and stubbornness! .. - BUT! The Count needed to point out Klyucharev, I understand! Pierre said. “It’s not necessary at all,” the adjutant said frightened. - There were sins for Klyucharev even without this, for which he was exiled. But the fact is that the count was very indignant. “How could you compose? says the Count. I took this "Hamburg newspaper" from the table. - Here she is. You didn’t compose, but translated, and translated it badly, because you don’t know French, you fool.” What do you think? “No, he says, I didn’t read any newspapers, I composed them.” “And if so, then you are a traitor, and I will put you on trial, and you will be hanged. Tell me, from whom did you get it? “I didn’t see any newspapers, but I composed them.” And so it remained. The count also called on his father: he stands his ground. And they put him on trial, and sentenced, it seems, to hard labor. Now the father has come to plead for him. But bad boy! You know, a kind of merchant's son, a dandy, a seducer, he listened to lectures somewhere and already thinks that the devil is not his brother. After all, what a young man! His father has a tavern here by the Stone Bridge, so in the tavern, you know, there is a large image of the Almighty God and a scepter is presented in one hand, a power in the other; so he took this image home for a few days and what did he do! Found the bastard painter... In the middle of this new story, Pierre was called to the commander in chief. Pierre entered Count Rostopchin's office. Rostopchin, grimacing, was rubbing his forehead and eyes with his hand, while Pierre entered. The short man was saying something, and as soon as Pierre entered, he fell silent and left.