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The Real Wizard Of Oz: The Life And Times Of L. Frank Baum (2009)

by Rebecca Loncraine(Favorite Author)

3.5 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1592404499 (ISBN13: 9781592404490)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Gotham

review 1: In my head I had crafted and drafted a fair, balanced and thorough review. Then I read everyone else's reviews.So, I shall take the easy path: Just read every other 3 star review and I agree with them all:Decent book. More of a "biographical story" than a true and critically researched biography (but forgivable). A fair bit of author-generated prose to fill in gaps in the history and to shape the biography into more of a story (but forgivable). A fair effort and a decent read to impart knowledge of Baum.On par with a Walter Isaacson biography? Absolutely not. But I don't feel shorted on my $9 investment at the used bookstore.
review 2: This diligently researched and gracefully written biography provides a comprehensive account of the man who created wha... moret Rebecca Loncraine calls, America's modern fairy tale. She creates an exquisite portrait of the period between the mid-1800s and the first two decades of the 20th century. Baum's first Oz book (he went on to write thirteen sequels) reflected his experience in New York State's Finger Lakes region, the Great Plains, and other parts of the Midwest. He understood on the night he completed The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (October 9, 1899) that he had done his best work. It seemed more like a discovery than an invention, Loncraine observes, and because the book took on a life of its own, Baum found himself in thrall to an audience that demanded still more stories from Oz. The biographer does not stint in her evocation of Baum's later years, when he tried to replicate the success of his book in Hollywood films-all of which were flops. A concluding chapter aptly describes the twenty-year period that culminated in the Technicolor transformation of Oz into a national epic, twenty years after Baum's death in 1919. less

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