![]() Cover of Tik-Tok of Oz | |
Author | L. Frank Baum |
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Illustrator | John R. Neill |
Language | English |
Series | The Oz books |
Genre | Children's novel |
Publisher | Reilly & Britton |
Publication date | 1914 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardcover) |
Preceded by | The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
Followed by | The Scarecrow of Oz |
Tik-Tok of Oz is the eighth book in the Oz series written by L. Frank Baum, published on June 19, 1914. The book has little to do with Tik-Tok and is primarily the quest of the Shaggy Man (introduced in The Road to Oz ) to rescue his brother, and his resulting conflict with the Nome King. The book was based on Baum's play The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, which was produced in Los Angeles in spring 1913. [1] It was followed by The Scarecrow of Oz (1915).
The endpapers of the first edition held maps: one of Oz itself, and one of the continents on which Oz and its neighboring countries belonged. These were the first maps printed of Oz. [2]
Queen Ann Soforth of Oogaboo, a small monarchy separated from the rest of Oz's Winkie Country, sets out to raise an army to conquer Oz.
Betsy Bobbin, a girl who is a year older than Dorothy Gale, and her loyal mule Hank have washed ashore during a storm. They arrive at a large greenhouse that is the domain of the Rose Kingdom, where the roses tell them that no strangers are allowed. Just as the Royal Gardener is about to pass sentence on Betsy and Hank, the Shaggy Man falls through the greenhouse's roof, and charms the Gardener into sparing all of their lives with his Love Magnet. The travelers leave, taking with them the newly plucked Rose Princess Ozga, a cousin of Ozma, the ruler of Oz.
The Shaggy Man relates how Ozma sent him here via the Magic Belt because he wanted to find his brother, who went digging underground in Colorado and disappeared. He surmised that the Nome King, ruler of the underground Nome Kingdom, captured him. They meet up with Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter, and they rescue Tik-Tok from the well where the Nome King had tossed him. Once Tik-Tok is wound up, he accompanies Betsy, Hank, the Shaggy Man, Ozga, and Polychrome to their chance encounter with Queen Ann and her army. When Queen Ann learns of the riches to be found in the Nome King's underground kingdom, she calms down and accepts the services of Tik-Tok as her new private.
The Nome King is aghast at this group coming toward his underground kingdom. Since no one can be killed in Oz, the Nome King seeks to discourage them, first by taking them through the Rubber Country, and then disposing of them by dropping them through the Hollow Tube, a conduit leading to the other side of the world. There the party enters the jurisdiction of the immortal called Tititi-Hoochoo, the Great Jinjin, who vows to punish the Nome King for using the Hollow Tube. He sends Tik-Tok and the others back with his Instrument of Vengeance, a lackadaisical dragon named Quox.
When Quox bursts through the Nome King's cavern, the Nome King sees the ribbon around Quox's neck and forgets all the magic he ever knew. The Nome King is driven out of his kingdom when Quox releases six eggs from the padlock around his neck. The eggs, poisonous to Nomes, follow the Nome King to the Earth's surface and confine him there.
The new Nome King, the former chief steward Kaliko, vows to help the Shaggy Man find his brother, whom he knows is in the Metal Forest. The Shaggy Man meets his brother in the center of the Forest, but the brother is cursed with a charm of ugliness by the former Nome King. The fairy Polychrome's kiss restores the Shaggy Man's brother to his former self.
There is a banquet of rejoicing in the Nome Kingdom, and the former Nome King earnestly pleads to be let back into the underground lair. Once on the surface again, Polychrome ascends her rainbow and Ozma uses the magic belt to send the citizens of Oogaboo back home. The Shaggy Man only agrees to return when his brother, Betsy, and Hank are allowed to enter Oz too. Betsy decides to stay in Oz forever.
In 1913, Baum's long-delayed and heavily-adapted stage version of Ozma of Oz, re-titled The Tik-Tok Man of Oz , was produced in Los Angeles, with moderate success. The music was composed by Louis F. Gottschalk, Baum's favorite composer, who would also be the dedicatee of the Tik-Tok novel a year later. Baum adapted some of the material from the stage production for the novel. As in Ozma of Oz, a shipwreck precipitates the heroine into her adventure, and the quest of the Shaggy Man for his brother, who was named Wiggy in the play, is another attempt to rescue a prisoner of the Nome King. The picking of Ozga is a motif found in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz . [3]
The book has several continuity errors with earlier books in the series, particularly The Road to Oz . Whereas Polychrome met the Shaggy Man in that book, this point is neglected by Baum in Tik-Tok. Also, whereas the Shaggy Man merely needs to carry the Love Magnet on his person for it to work in The Road to Oz, in this book it is necessary for him to remove it from his pocket and physically show it to those he wishes to love him. [4]
Tik-Tok of Oz was more modestly produced than earlier Oz books, with twelve color plates instead of sixteen. Its first edition sold a little over 14,000 copies — a respectable figure, but 3,000 fewer than The Patchwork Girl of Oz had done the year before. Baum's books were facing stiff new competition — from his own earlier books. The reprint house M. A. Donohue & Co. had purchased the rights to several early Baum works from Bobbs-Merrill, and was marketing cut-rate editions. People were less willing to pay the usual $1.25 for a new Oz book when the original Wizard of Oz was selling for $0.35. [5]
Tik-Tok of Oz also contained the first map of Oz and its neighboring countries, which proved to be a very popular feature. Unfortunately for the principle of consistency, this initial map of Oz was drawn backwards, with the Munchkin Country on the left and the Winkie Country in the right, with the compass rose reversed to keep the Munchkin Country in the east and the Winkie Country in the west. [See: Land of Oz .] Subsequent maps from the publisher "corrected" the compass rose, but not the locations. This may explain why Ruth Plumly Thompson reversed the locations from Baum's -- in her books the Munchkin country is west; and her Winkies East (see for instance Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz but also in several other books). James E. Haff and Dick Martin ultimately corrected these in new maps designed for The International Wizard of Oz Club. A squarish map that largely follows Haff and Martin appears in The Dictionary of Imaginary Places . The presence of a "Davy Jones Island" on this map indicates that the inclusion of the character Davy Jones, a wooden whale, as a decoration on the map, was misinterpreted by the book's recartographers, as no such place appears in any Oz books up to that book's publication.
The 1993 novel Queen Ann in Oz is a sequel to Tik-Tok of Oz.
The Road to Oz is the fifth book in L. Frank Baum's Oz series. It was originally published on July 10, 1909 and documents the adventures of Dorothy Gale's fourth visit to the Land of Oz. It was followed by The Emerald City of Oz (1910).
Ozma of Oz, published on July 30, 1907, was the third book of L. Frank Baum's Oz series. It was the first in which Baum was clearly intending a series of Oz books. It was followed by Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908).
The Tin Woodman of Oz: A Faithful Story of the Astonishing Adventure Undertaken by the Tin Woodman, Assisted by Woot the Wanderer, the Scarecrow of Oz, and Polychrome, the Rainbow's Daughter is the twelfth book in the Oz series written by L. Frank Baum and was originally published on May 13, 1918. The Tin Woodman is reunited with his Munchkin sweetheart Nimmie Amee from the days when he was flesh and blood. This was a back-story from Baum's 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It was followed by The Magic of Oz (1919).
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).
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 Deadly Desert is the magical desert in Nonestica that completely surrounds the fictional Land of Oz, which cuts it off from the rest of the world.
Tik-Tok is a fictional "mechanical man" from the Oz books by American author L. Frank Baum. He has been termed "the prototype robot", and is widely considered to be one of the first robots to appear in modern literature, though the term "Robot" was not used until the 1920s, in the play R.U.R.
Oz Squad is a comic book series using characters and setting from L. Frank Baum's Land of Oz series, "updated for a more adult audience".
The Nome King is a fictional character created by American author L. Frank Baum. He is introduced in Baum's third Oz book Ozma of Oz (1907). He also appears in many of the continuing sequel Oz novels also written by Baum. Although the character of the Wicked Witch of the West is the most notable and famous Oz villain, it is actually the Nome King who is the most frequent antagonist in the book series.
Polychrome is a cloud fairy and the youngest daughter of the Rainbow, thus she is a "sky princess". She first appears in The Road to Oz (1909), which is the fifth book of the original fourteen Oz books by American author by L. Frank Baum. She also appears several times in later Oz stories of the classic series, and has a title role in the modern sequel Polychrome: A Romantic Fantasy by Ryk E. Spoor.
Billina is a fictional character in the classic children's series of Oz books by American author L. Frank Baum. She is introduced in Ozma of Oz (1907).
The Shaggy Man is a character in the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. He first appeared in the book The Road to Oz in 1909.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, known in Japan as Ozu no Mahōtsukai (オズの魔法使い), is a Japanese anime television series adaptation based on four of the original early 20th century Oz books by L. Frank Baum. In Japan, the series aired on TV Tokyo from 1986 to 1987. It consists of 52 episodes, which explain other parts of the Oz stories, including the events that happened after Dorothy returned home.
The Land of Ev is a fictional country in the Oz books of L. Frank Baum and his successors. The country was first visited in Baum's third Oz novel, 1907's Ozma of Oz, and was the first of Baum's countries that surround the Land of Oz. This book introduced the Nome King, a recurring villain who lives underground beneath the Land of Ev.
Paradox in Oz is a 1999 novel written by Edward Einhorn. The book is an entry in the series of books about the Land of Oz written by L. Frank Baum and a host of successors.
Queen Ann in Oz is a 1993 children's novel written by Karyl Carlson and Eric Gjovaag, and illustrated by William Campbell and Irwin Terry. The book is an entry in the large and growing literature in the Oz series, begun by L. Frank Baum and continued by many successors.
Emerald City Confidential is a 2009 computer adventure game conceived by Dave Gilbert, developed by Wadjet Eye Games, and published through PlayFirst.
The Tik-Tok Man of Oz is a musical play with book and lyrics by L. Frank Baum and music by Louis F. Gottschalk that opened at the Majestic Theatre in Los Angeles, California on March 31, 1913. It is loosely inspired by Baum's book Ozma of Oz (1907), incorporates much of the material from Baum's book The Road to Oz (1909), and was the basis for his 1914 novel, Tik-Tok of Oz. It was promoted as "A Companion Play to The Wizard of Oz" and directed by Frank M. Stammers. The play is known from its advertising and published music, but survives only in earlier manuscript.
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