by John Fricke
Happy anniversary! March 2023 marks the onset of the sixth year of this series of monthly blogs, published by the Chittenango (NY) based International L. Frank Baum & All Things Oz Historical Foundation. My heartfelt appreciation goes to each of the Foundation officers and members for providing such a forum, for letting me compose and assemble it – and for being an invariably grand group of compatriots. Equal gratitude, of course, goes to all of you who “read here,” and who spread the Ozzy news that diverse material of an Ozzy nature is gleefully purveyed at this location by a fellow and very fervent Oz fan. 😊
Precisely three years ago this month, we looked back at some of the many foreign language editions of Baum’s first Oz book. The illustrations (whether cover or interior) were much marveled-at by many of you, so we’re returning to that topic for a brief series across these next months. In the process, I think you’ll come to the (perhaps astounded?) realization that Oz is – and indeed! has been — everywhere. It has also, as you’ll see, enjoyed many different guises across the decades since THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ was originally published out of Chicago in 1900.
Within the first decade of that book’s appearance, Baum himself claimed that translations of his initial tale about Dorothy & Company were already available in several nations around the globe. That may be true, but (as shown in the photo up top), the first of these thus far discovered by researchers, historians, and collectors was actually issued in France in 1932. Marcelle Gauwin did the adaptation, aided in the story-telling task by a number of reproductions of W. W. Denslow’s illustrations from the first or early WIZARD editions. Despite such “loyalty” – and as noted by the extraordinary OZ collector and historian Dick Martin in 1962 — there were a few (if inexplicable) adjustments for those who read the story in French: Dorothy became “Lily,” Kansas became “l’Arkansas,” and the hometown of the Wizard himself was changed from Omaha to Colorado!
If THE WIZARD OF OZ was at first slow to be translated, the past eleven decades have provided an ever-increasing floodtide of world-wide publications. The eventual global — and finally ongoing — familiarity of the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie musical of THE WIZARD OF OZ has been responsible to a great degree for the primo popularity of the Baum characters and terrains. Whatever the impetus, however, OZ now has been read over the years in (among other languages) Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Tamil, Russian, Czechoslovakian, Italian, Dutch, German, Swedish, Hungarian, Danish, Slovenian, Afrikaans, Finnish, Persian, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, Polish, Rumanian, Serbo-Croatian, and Rumanian.
There’s no question that much of the appeal of such volumes — and the enjoyment of collecting them — comes through the alternately beautiful, curious, unique manner in which they’ve been illustrated. Here are four diverse examples (with more to follow in one or two further blog installments).
This is the cover of the 1961 Yugoslavian edition of THE WIZARD OF OZ. Aleksandar Stefanovic did the translation into Serbo-Croatian; the Belgrade publisher was Mlado Pokolenjz. Like so many international artists before and since, Sasha Mishi took a singular approach in the selection of moments to illustrate; both familiar and less-often-portrayed moments of Dorothy’s saga are encompassed in Mishi’s interior black-and-white pictures. Here are three examples:
Douglas G. Greene and his twin brother, the late David L. Greene, were among the initial and most indefatigable forerunners of research and collecting when it came to foreign Oz books. As they noted in 1966 (and as can be seen above), the Mishi version of the Emerald City was “an unusual combination of Gothic and Moorish architecture.” In the other two images here, the artist first shows a semi-unfamiliar moment, as the Cowardly Lion proved his post-Emerald City courage by dispatching a giant spider that had been terrorizing the animals of one of the southern forests of Oz. Mishi also offers a pictorial of the welcome and to-be-expected sequence in which Dorothy melts the Wicked Witch of the West. Note that the art fully respects Baum’s original text reference to the fact that the evil crone had but a single eye.)
This paperback Dutch adaptation, DE GROTE TOVENAAR VAN OZ, was issued in Amsterdam by L. J. Veen in 1962, with perky contemporary cover art by Elly van Beek. Note that the credit for the original author reverses Baum’s “initial initial” (!) and middle name; this was not an uncommon occurrence over the years, whatever the publication. (The same mistake is made on the book’s title and copyright pages.) Henrik Scholte was the translator for this Oz excursion, and its lovely, evocative interior black and white pictures by Rein van Looy were retained from Veen’s 1940 edition of the title. They amount to an interesting amalgam of Denslow’s original interpretations of the Ozians and – especially in the case of Dorothy – a seeming (if minor) homage to MGM’s Judy Garland:
The MGM/Denslow juxtaposition can clearly be seen in the top van Looy illustration above. It accompanied the very first page of the Dutch text; here, Dorothy is determinedly Garlandesque, while the composition of copy and art resoundingly echoes Denslow’s original approach to the same leaf of the original 1900 edition (printed just below van Looy’s handling). The charming, in-repose picture of Dot, Toto, and her first two new companions is also a mélange of Hollywood and “Den,” while the last image here offers another, lesser-depicted moment, as the Cowardly Lion is acknowledged by what-may-be-the-later-legendary Hungry Tiger. (Is that a Bert Lahr tail maneuver at hand?) (So to speak . . .) The newly crowned King of the Forest has just dispatched the killer Spider; please see Michi’s drawing for the Yugoslavian WIZARD a few drawings back.
LU YEH SIEN TSUNG (above; cover by an unknown illustrator) dates from 1962, published in Formosa. Oddly enough, the text is Alexander Volkov’s version of Baum’s story, first issued in Russia (in Russian) in 1939 with no mention of Baum. The Mandarin Chinese adaptation includes Volkov’s added sequence, in which Ellie (Dorothy) is captured by a cannibalistic ogre, who plans to make sausage of her. Just below, you’ll see the bound Kansas girl, the monster (at right) sharpening his blade, and his meat grinder on a topmost shelf (at left).
All the interior visuals in this edition were originally drawn by N. Radlov for Volkov’s 1939 rewrite. In his approach to Oz, the artist depicts several of the traditional highlights of the story; he also shows a taste for the darker aspects of the Baum plot, as can be seen in the following images: The Tin Woodman is shown as he beheads a wildcat, so as to save the life of the Queen of the Field Mice (who complacently gazes on from the bottom left corner of the art). Meanwhile, the Scarecrow – later in the story – is represented in the process of matter-of-factly wringing the necks of the Wicked Witch’s forty crows, so as to save his friends from their attack. Here, Radlov blithely scatters the birds in the drawing: several on the ground, dozens in the air, and “two in the hand.”
[Note: As many Oz fans are aware, Volkov later began his own semi-original but successful sequels, in Russian, to THE WIZARD OF OZ. His series of five further books – about the “Magic Land” – was even continued after his passing in 1977 by several other authors, much as the “official” Oz Book series in America was expanded after L. Frank Baum died in 1919.]
Finally, an upbeat DER ZAUBERER OZ – translated by Sybil Grafin Schonfeldt and Maria Torris – was published in Berlin in 1964 by Cecilie Dressler Verlag. Illustrator Peter Krukenberg displays humor and heart (if not much detail) in his approach to the Tin Woodman, giving new meaning to the concept of a blockhead, as well as foreshadowing the platform shoes of later in that decade and into the 1970s. Below, he also submits a seldom-composed appreciation of the Emerald Citizians who prepped the Wizard’s balloon for its departure from the Emerald City; proffers a “gift” map from Dorothy and Toto, so as to help the children of Germany find Kansas amidst the contiguous forty-eight of the United States; and shows the Midwestern girl and her “Hund” in their return home again. His variation on the Em and Henry Gale abode is akin to both Baum’s one-room description and some of the hastier assemblages done in the mid-to-late-1800s by Charles “Pa” Ingalls for Caroline (“Ma”), Mary, Laura, Carrie, and Grace. 😊
And that’s all for this month – but as noted, there’ll be more amazing and/or glorious and/or puzzling and/or rapturous views-of-Oz from abroad in future blog installments. Many thanks for reading!
P.S. I would like to again acknowledge Dick, Doug, and Dave for their ground-breaking and joyous reportage about the foreign editions of THE WIZARD OF OZ referenced here. Some of their discoveries were shared in our correspondence, beginning in 1962-63; this information was then refined by them for more formal presentation in THE BAUM BUGLE, journal of The International Wizard of Oz Club, Inc. (ozclub.org)