The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

By L. Frank Baum

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Also available in Cornish, in Esperanto, in Hawaiian, in Ido, and in Irish.

“I am the Guardian of the Gates, and since you demand to see the Great Oz I must take you to his palace. But first you must put on the spectacles.”
“Why?” asked Dorothy.
“Because if you did not wear spectacles the brightness and glory of the Emerald City would blind you. Even those who live in the City must wear spectacles night and day. They are all locked on, for Oz so ordered it when the City was first built, and I have the only key that will unlock them.”
He opened the big box, and Dorothy saw that it was filled with spectacles of every size and shape. All of them had green glasses in them. The Guardian of the Gates found a pair that would just fit Dorothy and put them over her eyes.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is L. Frank Baum's story of a little girl named Dorothy, who with her dog Toto is carried by a tornado from Kansas to the strange and beautiful land of Oz. Here she decides to visit the Emerald City to ask its ruler, a wizard called Oz, to send her back home again. On the way she meets a Scarecrow, who is in search of brains; a Tin Woodman, who wishes to have a heart; and a Cowardly Lion, whose one desire is to possess courage. The little party encounter many dangers and marvelous adventures on the way, but reach the Emerald City in safety, their success being due to the thoughtfulness of the Scarecrow, the tender care of the Tin Woodman, and the fearlessness of the Cowardly Lion. This is the book that inspired the famous 1939 film -- which differs from the original book in quite a few ways!
This full-colour book contains the original illustrations by William Wallace Denslow which were were scanned from copies of the first edition. There are 24 colour plates and 150 text illustrations. The book has been typeset a fashion similar to that of the first edition, with some typographic improvements for the modern reader.