He was the seventh of nine children of Cynthia Ann (née Stanton) and Benjamin Ward Baum, only five of whom survived into adulthood. He had German, Scots-Irish, and English ancestry. His works anticipated such later commonplaces as television, augmented reality, laptop computers ( The Master Key), wireless telephones ( Tik-Tok of Oz), women in high-risk and action-heavy occupations ( Mary Louise in the Country), and the ubiquity of clothes advertising ( Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work).īaum was born in Chittenango, New York, in 1856 into a devout Methodist family. While continuing his writing, among his final projects he sought to establish a film studio focused on children's films in Los Angeles, California. They then moved to Chicago, where he worked as a newspaper reporter and published children's literature, coming out with the first Oz book in 1900.

He and his wife opened a store in South Dakota and he edited and published a newspaper. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book became a landmark of 20th-century cinema.īorn and raised in upstate New York, Baum moved west after an unsuccessful stint as a theater producer and playwright. In addition to the 14 Oz books, Baum penned 41 other novels (not including four lost, unpublished novels), 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts.

Lyman Frank Baum ( / b ɔː m/ – May 6, 1919) was an American author best known for his children's books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, part of a series.

Baum the wonderful wizard of oz