In the previous Oz book, The Emerald City of Oz, magic was used to isolate Oz from all contact with the outside world. Baum did this to end the Oz series, but was forced to restart the series with this book due to financial hardship.[1] In the prologue, he reconciles Oz's isolation with the appearance of a new Oz book by explaining that he contacted Dorothy in Oz via a wireless telegraph, and she obtained Ozma's permission to tell Baum this story.[2]
Plot
Ojo, known as Ojo the Unlucky, lives in poverty with his laconic uncle Unc Nunkie in the woods of the Munchkin Country in Oz. They visit their neighbor, the magician Dr. Pipt who is about to complete the six-year process of preparing the magical Powder of Life, which can bring inanimate objects to life. Pipt's wife has constructed a life-sized stuffed girl out of patchwork, and wishes her husband to animate her to serve as an obedient household servant. They also meet another of Pipt's creations, Bungle, an extremely vain talking cat made of glass. The Powder of Life successfully animates the patchwork girl, but an accident causes both Pipt's wife and Unc Nunkie to be turned to stone. Dr. Pipt tells Ojo that he must obtain five ingredients to make a compound to counteract the petrifaction spell.
Ojo and the patchwork girl, who calls herself Scraps, along with Bungle, embark on a journey to obtain the magic ingredients: a six-leaved clover, the wing of a yellow butterfly, water from a dark well, a drop of oil from a live man's body, and three hairs from a Woozy's tail. Scraps exhibits a wild, carefree personality, and is prone to spontaneous recitation of nonsense poetry. After several adventures, they meet a Woozy, a blocky quadruped who agrees to let them have three hairs from its tail. But they are unable to remove the hairs, so they take the Woozy along with them.
The party is captured by large animate plants, but they are rescued by the fortuitous arrival of the Shaggy Man. He leads them to the Emerald City to meet Princess Ozma, but warns Ojo that picking a six-leaved clover is forbidden by law in Oz. Along the way they meet the Scarecrow, who is quite smitten with Scraps, as she is with him. Just outside the Emerald City, Ojo sees a six-leaved clover by the road and, believing himself to be unobserved, picks it. When they arrive at the city gates, the Soldier with the Green Whiskers approaches them and announces that Ojo is under arrest.
Brought to trial before Ozma, Ojo confesses and Ozma pardons him and allows him to keep the clover. Dorothy and the Scarecrow join Ojo and Scraps as they continue their search for the remaining ingredients. Along the way they meet Jack Pumpkinhead, the playful but annoying Tottenhots, and the man-eating 21-foot-tall giant Mr. Yoop, before reaching the subterranean dwellings of the Hoppers, who each have just one leg, and the neighboring Horners, who each have one horn on their head. The two groups are on the verge of war due to a misunderstanding, but Scraps reconciles them. A grateful Horner leads the group to a well in a dark radium mine, and Ojo collects a flask of water from it.
The group continues to the castle of the Tin Woodsman who rules the Winkie Country, since yellow butterflies are most likely to be found in that yellow-dominated quadrant of Oz. While talking to the Tin Woodsman, Ojo notices a drop of oil about to drip from his body, and he catches it in a vial. He explains that he now has all the ingredients except one. But when he describes the last one, the Tin Woodsman is horrified at the idea of killing an innocent butterfly, and forbids them from doing so in his realm. Ojo is devastated, but the Tin Woodsman proposes that they all travel back to the Emerald City to ask Ozma's advice.
Ozma tells them that Dr. Pipt has been practicing magic illegally and has therefore been deprived of his powers. But the petrified Unc Nunkie and Pipt's wife have been brought to the Emerald City and as they all watch, the Wizard of Oz restores them to life. Ojo and Unc Nunkie are given a new house to live in near the Emerald City and the Tin Woodsman calls Ojo "Ojo the Lucky".
Development
In reference to The Patchwork Girl of Oz, one of Baum's letters to his publisher, Sumner Britton of Reilly & Britton, offers unusual insight on Baum's manner of creating his Oz fantasies:
A lot of thought is required on one of these fairy tales. The odd characters are a sort of inspiration, liable to strike me at any time, but the plot and plan of adventures takes me considerable time... I live with it day by day, jotting down on odd slips of paper the various ideas that occur and in this way getting my materials together. The new Oz book is at this stage.... But... it's a long way from being ready for the printer yet. I must rewrite it, stringing the incidents into consecutive order, elaborating the characters, etc. Then it's typewritten. Then it's revised, retypewritten and sent on to Reilly and Britton.[3]
The same correspondence (November 23–27, 1912) discusses the deleted Chapter 21 of the book, "The Garden of Meats". The text of the chapter has not survived, but Neill's illustrations and their captions still exist. The deleted chapter dealt with a race of vegetable people comparable to the Mangaboos in Chapters 4–6 of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. The vegetable people grow what Baum elsewhere calls "meat people", apparently for food; Neill's pictures show plants with the heads of human children[4] being watered by their growers. (This is thematically connected with the anthropophagous plants in Chapter 10 of Patchwork Girl.) Frank Reilly tactfully wrote to Baum that the material was not "in harmony with your other fairy stories", and would generate "considerable adverse criticism". Baum saw his point; the chapter was dropped.[5]
At least at one point in his life, Baum stated that he considered The Patchwork Girl of Oz "one of the two best books of my career", the other being The Sea Fairies.[6] The book was a popular success, selling just over 17,000 copies—though this was somewhat lower than the total for the previous book, The Emerald City of Oz, and marked the start of a trend in declining sales for the Oz books that did not reverse until The Tin Woodman of Oz in 1918.
Baum also wrote a musical stage adaptation of the book, circa 1913, with composer Louis F. Gottschalk; however, this musical was never staged. Excerpts have occasionally been performed at annual conventions of The International Wizard of Oz Club.
Criticism
While Baum's work as a whole is occasionally criticized for using what may be seen as racial and ethnic stereotypes, the Patchwork Girl has come in for particular criticism. Harvard Professor Robin Bernstein suggests the Patchwork Girl character was influenced by Topsy in Uncle Tom's Cabin and points out she was created by Dr. Pipt's wife to be a slave. Moreover, the original text included a song (by the similarly animated Phonograph) about "mah coal black Lulu"; the lyric, evocative of minstrelsy, was changed in later editions to "my cross-eyed Lulu". Similarly problematic is the inclusion in the book of a set of creatures called the Tottenhots, likely meant to be a play on the ethnic term Hottentots.[8]
↑ Bodiless human heads are rather a pre-occupation with Baum; they occur repeatedly in his fantasies, Ozma of Oz, Chapter 6 and The Tin Woodman of Oz, Chapter 18 being two examples.
The yellow brick road is a central element in the 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by American author L. Frank Baum. The road also appears in the several sequel Oz books such as The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904) and The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913).
The Marvelous Land of Oz: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, commonly shortened to The Land of Oz, published in July 1904, is the second book in L. Frank Baum's Oz series, and the sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). This and the following 34 books in the series were illustrated by John R. Neill.
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz is the fourth book set in the Land of Oz written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by John R. Neill. It was published on June 18, 1908 and reunites Dorothy Gale with the humbug Wizard from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). This is one of only two of the original fourteen Oz books to be illustrated with watercolor paintings.
Dorothy Gale is a fictional character created by American author L. Frank Baum as the protagonist in many of his Oz novels. She first appears in Baum's classic 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reappears in most of its sequels. In addition, she is the main character in various adaptations, notably the classic 1939 film adaptation of the novel, The Wizard of Oz.
Princess Ozma is a fictional character from the Land of Oz, created by American author L. Frank Baum. She appears for the first time in the second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904), and in every Oz book thereafter.
The Land of Oz is a magical country introduced in the 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow.
The Patchwork Girl is a character from the fantasy Oz Book series by L. Frank Baum. She first appeared in The Patchwork Girl of Oz.
The Cowardly Lion of Oz (1923) is the seventeenth in the series of Oz books created by L. Frank Baum and his successors, and the third written by Ruth Plumly Thompson. It was illustrated by John R. Neill.
The Scalawagons of Oz (1941) is the thirty-fifth in the series of Oz books created by L. Frank Baum and continued by his successors; it is the second volume in the series both written and illustrated by John R. Neill.
The Runaway in Oz is an Oz book by long-time Oz illustrator John R. Neill. It was written originally during 1943 and was meant to be the thirty-seventh book in the Oz series. However, Neill died before he could edit or illustrate the book. Oz publisher Reilly & Lee decided not to publish the book due to shortages caused by World War II. The text remained a possession of Neill's family.
The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914) is a silent film made by L. Frank Baum's The Oz Film Manufacturing Company. It was based on the 1913 book The Patchwork Girl of Oz.
Bungle, the Glass Cat is a character in the Oz books of L. Frank Baum.
Jellia Jamb is a fictional character from the classic children's series of Oz books by American author L. Frank Baum. She is first introduced in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), as the head maid who works in the royal palace of the Emerald City which is the imperial capital of the Land of Oz. In later books, Jellia eventually becomes Princess Ozma's favorite servant out of the Emerald City's staff administration. She is also the protagonist of Ruth Plumly Thompson's 1939 novel Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz. Her name is a pun on the phrase "Jelly or jam?"
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a 1900 children's novel written by American author L. Frank Baum. Since its first publication in 1900, it has been adapted many times by L. Frank Baum and others: for film, television, theatre, books, comics, games, and other media.
The Soldier with the Green Whiskers is a character from the fictional Land of Oz who appears in the classic children's series of Oz books by American author L. Frank Baum and his successors. He is introduced in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). His name is Omby Amby, but this was so obliquely stated that he also became known briefly as Wantowin Battles.
The Forbidden Fountain of Oz is a 1980 children's novel written by Eloise Jarvis McGraw and her daughter Lauren Lynn Mcgraw, and illustrated by Dick Martin. The book is an entry in the long-running series of Oz books written by L. Frank Baum and his many successors.
Little Wizard Stories of Oz is a set of six short stories written for young children by L. Frank Baum, the creator of the Oz books. The six tales were published in separate small booklets, "Oz books in miniature," in 1913, and then in a collected edition in 1914 with illustrations by John R. Neill. Each booklet is 29 pages long, and printed in blue ink rather than black.
The Magic Dishpan of Oz is a 1994 children's book written by Jeff Freedman and illustrated by Denis McFarling. The book is a contribution to the ever-growing Oz series, originated by L. Frank Baum and continued by many successors.
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