 First edition | |
| Author | L. Frank Baum |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | John R. Neill |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's novel |
| Publisher | Reilly & Britton |
Publication date | 1911 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 240 pp. |
| Followed by | Sky Island |
The Sea Fairies is a children's fantasy novel written by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by John R. Neill, and published in 1911 by the Reilly & Britton Company, the publisher of Baum's series of Oz books.
As an underwater fantasy, Baum's The Sea Fairies can be classed with earlier books with similar themes, like Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies (1863), and successors too, like E. Nesbit's Wet Magic (1913). Baum's novel has no relation to the 1830 poem of the same name by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. In 1905, however, a musical setting of Tennyson's poem for female chorus and orchestra, composed by Amy Beach, was in performance; the title may have stuck in the back of Baum's mind.
Mayre Griffiths, nicknamed Trot, or sometimes Tiny Trot, is a little girl who lives on the coast of southern California. Her father is the captain of a sailing schooner, and her constant companion is Cap'n Bill Weedles, a retired sailor with a wooden leg. (Cap'n Bill had been Trot's father's skipper, and Charlie Griffiths had been his mate, before the accident that took the older man's leg.) Trot and Cap'n Bill spend many of their days roaming the beaches near home, or rowing and sailing along the coast. One day, Trot wishes that she could see a mermaid; her wish is overheard, and granted the next day. The mermaids explain to Trot, and the distressed Cap'n Bill, that they are benevolent fairies; when they offer Trot a chance to visit their world in mermaid form, Trot is enthusiastic, and Bill is too loyal to let her go off without him.
So begins their sojourn among the sea fairies. They see amazing sights in the land of Queen Aquarine and King Anko (including an octopus who is mortified to learn that he's the symbol of the Standard Oil Company). They also encounter a villain called Zog the Magician, a monstrous hybrid of man, animal, and fish, one of the very few absolutely irredeemable, pure-evil characters in Baum's writings. Zog and his sea devils capture them and hold them prisoner. The two protagonists discover that many sailors thought to have been drowned have actually been captured and enslaved by Zog. Trot and Cap'n Bill survive Zog's challenges, and the villain is eventually defeated by the forces of good. Trot and Cap'n Bill are returned to human form, safe and dry after their undersea adventure.
As many readers and critics have observed, Baum's Oz in particular and his fantasy novels in general are dominated by puissant and virtuous female figures; the archetype of the father-figure plays little role in Baum's fantasy world. The Sea Fairies is a lonely exception to this overall trend: "The sea serpent King Anko...is the closest approximation to a powerful, benevolent father figure in Baum's fantasies." [1]
Baum had decided to end the Oz series with The Emerald City of Oz in 1910, after six installments over the first decade of the twentieth century. The Sea Fairies was intended to be the first in a new series of fantasy novels, which Baum and Reilly & Britton continued the next year with Sky Island. Unfortunately for author and publisher, the two volumes of the new projected series did not meet with the same success as the Oz books previously had. The first edition of The Sea Fairies sold 12,400 copies in its initial year on the market, where The Emerald City of Oz had sold 20,000. Even when Baum's books experienced a major resurgence in interest and sales in 1918, The Sea Fairies sold only 611 copies that year while the Oz books and even Baum's non-Oz works were selling thousands of copies. [2]
Once Baum returned to writing Oz books with The Patchwork Girl of Oz in 1913, the Trot series was retired – but the main characters lived on. Trot and Cap'n Bill are the main protagonists in The Scarecrow of Oz (1915) — the plot of which was reworked from the projected third book in their aborted series – and they play a significant role in The Magic of Oz (1919). Trot appears in The Lost Princess of Oz (1917) and Glinda of Oz (1920) as well. She also plays significant roles in some of Ruth Plumly Thompson's Oz books, and, after that, in official and non-official sequels by various authors.
In 1985, an independent producer commissioned a script based on The Sea Fairies as a follow-up to the movie Return to Oz , but because of the films poor reception, the project was apparently dropped.
The Oz Kids video Journey Beneath the Sea was a loose adaptation of The Sea Fairies.
The Patchwork Girl of Oz is the seventh book in L. Frank Baum's Oz series. Characters include the Woozy, Ojo "the Unlucky", Unc Nunkie, Dr. Pipt, Scraps, and others. The novel was first published on July 1, 1913, with illustrations by John R. Neill. In 1914, Baum adapted the book to film through his Oz Film Manufacturing Company. The book was followed by Tik-Tok of Oz (1914).
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a 1900 children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. It is the first novel in the Oz series of books. A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the magical Land of Oz after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their home by a cyclone. Upon her arrival in the magical world of Oz, she learns she cannot return home until she has destroyed the Wicked Witch of the West.
The Emerald City of Oz is the sixth book in L. Frank Baum's Oz series. Originally published on July 20, 1910, it is the story of Dorothy Gale and her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em coming to live in Oz permanently. While they are toured through the Quadling Country, the Nome King is assembling allies for an invasion of Oz. This is the first time in the Oz series that Baum made use of double plots for one of the books.
The Scarecrow of Oz is the ninth book in the Oz series written by L. Frank Baum. Published on July 16, 1915, it was Baum's personal favorite of the Oz books and tells of Cap'n Bill and Trot journeying to Oz and, with the help of the Scarecrow, overthrowing the corrupt King Krewl of Jinxland. Cap'n Bill and Trot had previously appeared in two other novels by Baum, The Sea Fairies (1911) and Sky Island (1912).
The Magic of Oz is the thirteenth book in the Oz series written by L. Frank Baum. Published on June 7, 1919, one month after the author's death, The Magic of Oz relates the unsuccessful attempt of the Munchkin boy Kiki Aru and former Nome King Ruggedo to conquer Oz. It was followed by Glinda of Oz (1920).
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 Nome King is a fictional character created by American author L. Frank Baum, introduced in the 1907 book Ozma of Oz. The Nome King recurs in many of the Oz novels, being the most frequent antagonist in Baum's book series.
Kabumpo in Oz (1922) is the sixteenth book in the Oz series, and the second written by Ruth Plumly Thompson. It was the first Oz book fully credited to her. It was followed by The Cowardly Lion of Oz (1923).
The Magical Mimics in Oz (1946) is the thirty-seventh book in the Oz series created by L. Frank Baum and his successors, and the first written by Jack Snow. It was illustrated by Frank G. Kramer. The novel was followed by The Shaggy Man of Oz (1949). The novel entered the public domain in the United States, when its copyright was not renewed as required.
King Pastoria is a fictional character mentioned in the Oz books by American author L. Frank Baum. He was the rightful ruler and King of the undiscovered Land of Oz, but was mysteriously removed from his position when the Wizard of Oz unexpectedly came to the country and took the throne, proclaiming himself as the new dominant ruler of Oz. Shortly after, Pastoria's only child and heir, Princess Ozma, suddenly vanished, leaving not a single clue of her whereabouts.
The Reilly and Britton Company, known after 1918 as Reilly & Lee, was an American publishing company of the early and middle 20th century, best known for children's and popular culture books from authors like L. Frank Baum and Edgar A. Guest. Founded in 1904 by two former employees of George M. Hill's publishing company, Frank Kennicott Reilly and Charles Sumner Britton. Reilly continued to lead the company until his death in 1932. Britton left the firm around 1916 to start a new company in New York, and for a time the company was guided by William F. Lee, who died in 1924. Following Reilly's death, Francis J. O'Donnell ran the company until it was acquired by the Henry Regnery Company in 1959.
Bungle, the Glass Cat is a character in the Oz books of L. Frank Baum.
Sky Island: Being the Further Adventures of Trot and Cap'n Bill after Their Visit to the Sea Fairies is a children's fantasy novel written by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by John R. Neill, and published in 1912 by the Reilly & Britton Company—the same constellation of forces that produced the Oz books in the first decades of the twentieth century.
The Ozmapolitan of Oz is a 1986 novel written and illustrated by Dick Martin. The novel is an unofficial entry in the long-running Oz series written by L. Frank Baum and various 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. The stories were issued to promote the new Oz novel, The Patchwork Girl of Oz. Each booklet is 29 pages long, and printed in blue ink rather than black.
Animal Fairy Tales is a collection of short stories written by L. Frank Baum, the creator of the Land of Oz series of children's books. The stories first received magazine publication in 1905. For several decades in the twentieth century, the collection was a "lost" book by Baum; it resurfaced when the International Wizard of Oz Club published the stories in one volume in 1969.
Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea is a juvenile adventure novel written by L. Frank Baum, famous as the creator of the Land of Oz. The book was Baum's first effort at writing specifically for an audience of adolescent boys, a market he pursued in the coming years of his career. The novel was first published in 1906, under the pen name "Capt. Hugh Fitzgerald", one of Baum's pseudonyms.
The Sea Fairies public domain audiobook at LibriVox 
