Comment I was going to leave on the foreword, but it didn't have comments enabled:
These days, if you mention adaptations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the first one to spring to mind is usually the massively popular 1939 film. But the *first* massively popular adaptation was the stage version Baum mentions in the foreword, which opened on Broadway less than three years after the book was published.
It made a lot of changes, of course, due to the practicalities of live staging or in deference to the tastes of theatre-going audiences. Live animals can be chancy, so Toto was written out and Dorothy was instead accompanied by a cow named Imogene, played by a man in a cow suit. Also written out, if you can believe it, was the Wicked Witch of the West -- the entire quest to the land of the Winkies was thrown out and replaced with a new plot involving palace intrigue in the Emerald City.
The success of the show had a lot to do with Baum deciding to write a second Oz book, and with the form the sequel took -- starting with it being conceived as (per the subtitle, and as also alluded to in the foreword) "an Account of the Further Adventures of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman": Fred Stone as the Scarecrow and David C. Montgomery as the Tin Woodman were the breakout stars of the stage show. There are other aspects of the novel, which we will see as we go along, that make me suspect that Baum included them with an eye on what would look good on stage. (Though if he was hoping the stage adaptation of Marvelous Land would get some built-in heat by featuring the return of Montgomery and Stone, he was thwarted by his own success -- they weren't available to reprise their famous roles in the new play, because they were busy playing them in the original show, which was still running.)
So what would the difference between a witch and a sorceress and a wizardess be? Post your theories (or the truth if it's something that gets elaborated on)
Comment I was going to leave on the foreword, but it didn't have comments enabled:
These days, if you mention adaptations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the first one to spring to mind is usually the massively popular 1939 film. But the *first* massively popular adaptation was the stage version Baum mentions in the foreword, which opened on Broadway less than three years after the book was published.
It made a lot of changes, of course, due to the practicalities of live staging or in deference to the tastes of theatre-going audiences. Live animals can be chancy, so Toto was written out and Dorothy was instead accompanied by a cow named Imogene, played by a man in a cow suit. Also written out, if you can believe it, was the Wicked Witch of the West -- the entire quest to the land of the Winkies was thrown out and replaced with a new plot involving palace intrigue in the Emerald City.
The success of the show had a lot to do with Baum deciding to write a second Oz book, and with the form the sequel took -- starting with it being conceived as (per the subtitle, and as also alluded to in the foreword) "an Account of the Further Adventures of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman": Fred Stone as the Scarecrow and David C. Montgomery as the Tin Woodman were the breakout stars of the stage show. There are other aspects of the novel, which we will see as we go along, that make me suspect that Baum included them with an eye on what would look good on stage. (Though if he was hoping the stage adaptation of Marvelous Land would get some built-in heat by featuring the return of Montgomery and Stone, he was thwarted by his own success -- they weren't available to reprise their famous roles in the new play, because they were busy playing them in the original show, which was still running.)
Two of my favorite characters have been introduced. Or, maybe one-and-a-half?
The design of all the houses in the illustration is certainly a Choice.
So what would the difference between a witch and a sorceress and a wizardess be? Post your theories (or the truth if it's something that gets elaborated on)
Tbh it doesn't seem very "good" to put a blanket ban on all other witches in her territory