L. Frank Baum 
The Lost Princess of Oz 

Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919) was an American writer of children’s books, best known for creating the marvelous Land of Oz in ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’. This fanciful kingdom was catalogued in a series of children’s books beginning with the publication of ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’. Baum’s Oz series compasses the first fully developed fantasy world created by an American author. In 1900, Baum and Denslow, famous illustrator with whom he shared the copyright, published ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’, making it one of the first commercially successful uses of color illustrations in American publishing. Dorothy and her friends soon began their journey toward becoming an integral part of the American consciousness. ‘The Lost Princess of Oz’ is the eleventh book to the Land of Oz series. In the introduction is a letter written to Baum by a little girl on what drew the book’s inspiration: ‘I suppose if Ozma ever got hurt or losted, everybody would be sorry.’ The story begins with the vanishing of the ruler of Oz, Princess Ozma, and relays Dorothy and the Wizard’s efforts to find her.