BAUM, L. Frank (1856-1919). A New Wonderland. New York: R.H. Russell, 1900.
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BAUM, L. Frank (1856-1919). A New Wonderland. New York: R.H. Russell, 1900.

Details
BAUM, L. Frank (1856-1919). A New Wonderland. New York: R.H. Russell, 1900.

4o (273 x 224 mm). Title printed in plum and green, 15 color-printed plates, including the frontispiece (frequently lacking), and numerous in-text illustrations by Frank Ver Beck. (Half-title, frontispiece, and title-page with a few marginal tears, frontispiece with small marginal loss, tiny dampstain to lower corner, a few stains.) Original cloth-backed pictorial boards, pictorial endpapers (rubbed and bumped, hinges loose, frontispiece and title detached). Provenance: Harry Neal Baum (1889-1967), Frank L. Baum's son (presentation inscription from his father).

FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED BY BAUM TO HIS SON on the verso of frontispiece: "Harry Neal Baum from his loving father L. Frank Baum. Chicago 1900 These were the stories I told you when you were a baby." A New Wonderland was the first children's book written by Baum in 1896, but its publication was delayed for several years; he planned to publish the collection under the title The King of Phunnyland in 1898 as a follow-up to his moderately successful Mother Goose in Prose of 1897. The publisher through whom he planned to publish it went out of business, so he shopped it around. The success of his Father Goose of 1899 inspired R.H. Russell to publish A New Wonderland. It was later revised and published as The Magical Monarch of Mo. The large format of this book has made it fragile and very rare; many copies lack the frontispiece. Baughman 49. A SUPERB ASSOCIATION COPY OF THIS RARE BAUM WORK.

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