Introduction





Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood

through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and

instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal.

The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to

childish hearts than all other human creations.



Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations,

may now be classed as "historical" in the children's library; for

the time has come for a series of newer "wonder tales" in which

the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together

with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by

their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern

education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only

entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all

disagreeable incident.



Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful

Wizard of Oz" was written solely to please children of today. It

aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment

and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.





L. Frank Baum



Chicago, April, 1900.

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