L. Frank Baum 
SURPRISING ADVENTURES OF THE MAGICAL MONARCH OF MO And His People 

The “Surprising Adventures Of The Magical Monarch Of Mo And His People” is the first full-length children’s fantasy book by L. Frank Baum which is a forerunner  to his more successful “Alice in Wonderland” and the many other books of Oz. Originally published in 1899, it is the first Account ever printed of the Beautiful Valley, and the Wonderful Adventures of its Inhabitants. It is well illustrated by Frank Ver Beck.



Unlike Baum’s later books, each of the 14 chapters, or “Surprises”, is a different full-length story. They do, however, have a general throughline, and can be seen as an episodic novel.



The Surprises, or chapters are:

• The Beautiful Valley of Mo,


• The Strange Adventures of the King’s Head,


• The Tramp Dog and the Monarch’s Lost Temper,


• The Peculiar Pains of Fruit Cake Island,


• The Monarch Celebrates His Birthday,


• King Scowleyow and His Cast-Iron Man,


• Timtom and the Princess Pattycake,


• The Bravery of Prince Jollikin,


• The Wizard and the Princess,


• The Duchess Bredenbutta’s Visit to Turvyland,


• Prince Fiddlecumdoo and the Giant,


• The Land of the Civilized Monkeys,


• The Stolen Plum-Pudding, and,


• The Punishment of the Purple Dragon,

all of which give you a flavour of the fantasy you and your children can expect in the wonderful pages of this book.

Mo is much more of a nonsense book than Oz, in a similar vein to Lewis Carroll’s 1865 book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and it’s sequel, Sylvie and Bruno, which is probably what the author tried to emulate – and he did a fine job as well.



The book was reissued in 1903 with a new title in order to capitalize upon Baum’s success with “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” The book was only slightly altered in the process—Mo is called Phunniland or Phunnyland, but aside from the last paragraph of the first chapter, it is essentially the same book.



10% of the profit generated from the sale of this book will be donated to charity.

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L. Frank Baum also wrote under the name Edith Van Dyne, Floyd Akers, Schuyler Staunton, John Estes Cooke, Suzanne Metcalf, Laura Bancroft. Lyman Frank Baum was an American author, actor, and independent filmmaker best known as the creator, along with illustrator W. W. Denslow, of one of the most popular books in American children’s literature, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, better known today as simply The Wizard of Oz. He wrote thirteen sequels, nine other fantasy novels, and a plethora of other works (55 novels in total, 82 short stories, over 200 poems, an unknown number of scripts, and many miscellaneous writings), and made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen.

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