May 17, 1900: American Author L. Frank Baum published his most famous children’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The book was so successful that it became a musical in 1902. Baum went on to write a whole Oz series with 13 more books. The Wizard of Oz is regarded as one of the greatest American stories of all time.
WIKIPEDIA: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a 1900 children’s novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow.[1] It is the first novel in the Oz series of books. A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the magical Land of Oz after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their home by a cyclone.[2] Upon her arrival in the magical world of Oz, she learns she cannot return home until she has destroyed the Wicked Witch of the West.[3]
The book was first published in the United States in May 1900 by the George M. Hill Company.[4] In January 1901, the publishing company completed printing the first edition, a total of 10,000 copies, which quickly sold out.[4] It had sold three million copies by the time it entered the public domain in 1956. It was often reprinted under the title The Wizard of Oz, which is the title of the successful 1902 Broadway musical adaptation as well as the classic 1939 live-action film.[5][6]
The ground-breaking success of both the original 1900 novel and the 1902 Broadway musical prompted Baum to write thirteen additional Oz books which serve as official sequels to the first story. Over a century later, the book is one of the best-known stories in American literature, and the Library of Congress has declared the work to be “America’s greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale.”
L. Frank Baum‘s story was published by George M. Hill Company.[4] The first edition had a printing of 10,000 copies and was sold in advance of the publication date of September 1, 1900.[4] On May 17, 1900, the first copy came off the press; Baum assembled it by hand and presented it to his sister, Mary Louise Baum Brewster. The public saw it for the first time at a book fair at the Palmer House in Chicago, July 5–20. Its copyright was registered on August 1; full distribution followed in September.[8] By October 1900, it had already sold out and the second edition of 15,000 copies was nearly depleted.[4]
In a letter to his brother, Baum wrote that the book’s publisher, George M. Hill, predicted a sale of about 250,000 copies. In spite of this favorable conjecture, Hill did not initially predict that the book would be phenomenally successful. He agreed to publish the book only when the manager of the Chicago Grand Opera House, Fred R. Hamlin, committed to making it into a musical stage play to publicize the novel.
The play The Wizard of Oz debuted on June 16, 1902. It was revised to suit adult preferences and was crafted as a “musical extravaganza,” with the costumes modeled after Denslow’s drawings. When Hill’s publishing company became bankrupt in 1901,[9] the Indianapolis-based Bobbs-Merrill Company resumed publishing the novel.[10][9] By 1938, more than one million copies of the book had been printed.[11] By 1956, sales had grown to three million copies.