Since the publication of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, authors, filmmakers, and theatrical producers have been retelling and reinventing this uniquely American fairy tale. This volume examines six especially significant incarnations of the story: Baum's original novel, the MGM classic The Wizard of Oz (1939), Sidney Lumet's African American film musical The Wiz (1978), Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995), Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman's Broadway hit Wicked: A New Musical (2003), and the SyFy Channel miniseries Tin Man (2007). A close consideration of these works demonstrates how versions of Baum's tale are influenced by and help shape notions of American myth, including issues of gender, race, home, and magic, and makes clear that the Wizard of Oz narrative remains compelling and relevant today.

" Explores the historical rise of the literary fairy tale as genre in the late seventeenth century. In his examinations of key classical fairy tales, Zipes traces their unique metamorphoses in history with stunning discoveries that reveal their ideological relationship to domination and oppression. Tales such as Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and Rumplestiltskin have become part of our everyday culture and shapers of our identities. In this lively work, Jack Zipes explores the historical rise of the literary fairy tale as genre in the late seventeenth century and examines the ideological relationship of classic fairy tales to domination and oppression in Western society. The fairy tale received its most "mythic" articulation in America. Consequently, Zipes sees Walt Disney's Snow White as an expression of American male individualism, film and literary interpretations of L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz as critiques of American myths, and Robert Bly's Iron John as a misunderstanding of folklore and traditional fairy tales. This book will change forever the way we look at the fairy tales of our youth.

Discover the powerful, unique skills and qualities of Dorothy, the Wizard, and the other archetypes of mind, heart, and courage that live within each of us. Houston offers new understanding of the human condition, the importance of myth, and the critical nature of our role and how we can participate in the creation of a better world. It's time to uncover your inner hero and become the essential human you were always meant to be.

A groundbreaking new look at the author of an iconic American novel--"The Wizard of Oz"--this biography offers profound new insights into the true origins and meaning behind L. Frank Baum's 1900 masterwork.

The Road to Wicked examines the long life of the Oz myth. It is both a study in cultural sustainability— the capacity of artists, narratives, art forms, and genres to remain viable over time—and an examination of the marketing machinery and consumption patterns that make such sustainability possible. Drawing on the fields of macromarketing, consumer behavior, literary and cultural studies, and theories of adaption and remediation, the authors examine key adaptations and extensions of Baum’s 1900 novel. These include the original Oz craze, the MGM film and its television afterlife, Wicked and its extensions, and Oz the Great and Powerful—Disney’s recent (and highly lucrative) venture that builds on the considerable success of Wicked. At the end of the book, the authors offer a foundational framework for a new theory of cultural sustainability and propose a set of explanatory conditions under which any artistic experience might achieve it.

In Chicago, an ordinary key unlocks a magical trunk packed with robbers and a pie. In Boston, five magical bon-bons make an ordinary senator, an ordinary professor, an ordinary girl and her ordinary parents do the most extraordinary things A young cowboy lassoes Father Time; the dummy in Mr. Floman's department store window comes to life; and a tiny beetle gives a New England farmer and his wife a pump which pumps not water, but gold Author of the much-loved Oz books, L. Frank Baum transforms the familiar with his magical mix of humor and enchantment. Most of the twelve stories in this delightful collection are set in America where, so it seems, modern fairies, knooks, and ryls are always causing the most astonishing things to happen These tales will enchant both young and old. When American Fairy Tales first appeared, Baum's reputation as a storyteller had already been established by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written in 1900. The twelve stories in this collection were originally syndicated weekly in at least five newspapers during the first half of 1901. The first book edition, which this facsimile reprints, came out later that year.

A collection of twenty-two nursery rhymes, including "Old King Cole" and "Little Bo-Peep," fashioned into full-length stories by the author of "The Wizard of Oz."