The Lost Princess of OZ, L. Frank Baum's books in the Rare Book Collection

One of the stories that most of us grew up with was the tale of the Wizard of Oz. Our very own Rare Book Room has several books from the series by L. Frank Baum.

One of our titles is The Lost Princess of Oz, the eleventh book in the series published on June 5, 1917. This particular novel was stated to be inspired by a little girl’s letter to Baum. The illustrations of this series were what drew me to it. The illustrations were so beautiful and detailed. Even the books’ covers stand out on the shelf. The artist of The Lost Princess of Oz was the artist John R. Neill. He was one of the main artists who worked on the series with 35 books relating to Oz.

Neill wasn’t the original artist that was working on this series. The original artist who illustrated The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was W.W. Denslow. Both artists have noticeably different art styles. Denslow’s art style was more cartoony, bold, and simple, while Neill’s illustrations were more detailed and elegant. There were big changes made to Dorothy’s character design between both illustrators. The classic design that most of us know of Dorothy with two braids was by Denslow (supposedly Baum was not a fan of his illustrator’s version of Dorothy). Neill’s version of Dorothy was an older girl with a blonde bob.

An unfortunate fact when it comes to the series’ artwork is that most of the original artwork and sketches got lost. Out of an estimated 4,000 illustrations by Neill, only 10%  have survived.

by

Roselyn Garcia-Mendoza