Purchased by deGrummond Collection.
Non-circulating; available for research.
This collection is protected by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U. S. Code). Reproductions can be made only if they are to be used for "private study, scholarship, or research." It is the user's responsibility to verify copyright ownership and to obtain all necessary permissions prior to the reproduction, publication, or other use of any portion of these materials, other than that noted above.
As the creator of the Oz series, L. Frank Baum styled himself the "Royal Historian of Oz." According to Baum, the beautiful Princess Ozma herself conferred on him the auspicious title; later, John R. Neill, Baum's main collaborator on the Oz books, earned the appelation, "Imperial Illustrator of Oz" because of the distinguished service he rendered to Ozma through his illustrations.
Born in Philadelphia in 1877, Neill worked as a staff illustrator for the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Evening Journal, and finally the Philadelphia North American. In 1904, while on the staff of the North American, Neill began the working relationship with Baum that ultimately led to his collaboration on the Oz series. Between 1904 when Neill illustrated the second Oz book (The Marvelous Land of Oz) and his death in 1943, he served as Baum's illustrator for the Oz books and for Baum's other fantasy titles. Neill even authored three Oz books, one of which resides in deGrummon's closed stacks (The Scalawagons of Oz).
The economy of style Neill brought to the Oz books gave Baum's characters and exotic locales form and substance, forever linking Neill to the Oz series. Later illustrators worked with the Oz series, but none gave so much as Neill to Oz' creation.
This collection holds two of Neill's illustrations and a map of Oz.
Folder one contains an illustration originally sketched in pencil and inked in sometime later. Apparently it corresponds to chapter 23, page 143 of one of the Oz books; however, none of the titles in the deGrummond Collection has this particular sketch in it. Even so, the sketch best resembles Neill's more mature representations of the Wizard of Oz.
Folder two holds an unidentified print which also appears in none of the Oz titles in our possession, neither those written by Baum, Ruth P. Thompson, nor Neill himself. However, it does resemble Vegetable Man in Ruth P. Thompson's The Hungry Tiger of Oz, one of a series meant to carry on the Oz stories after Baum's death.
The color map in folder three was published in 1967 by the International Wizard of Oz Club, twenty-four years after Neill's death.
The W.W. Denslow Papers (DG0262) and The Angelica Carpenter and Jean Shirley Papers (DG1138).
Box/Folder
A. Illustrations
1/1 Original illustration, ink over pencil sketch,
unidentified original entitled, "Make way for his Excellency, the great
Wizard of Oz."
1/2 Illustration, unidentified print.
B. Map
1/3 Color map, "The Marvelous Land of Oz," published by the International
Wizard of Oz Club, 1967.
Processed: June 03, 1994
Revised: June 2001
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Hattiesburg, MS 39406-0001
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