The Lost Princess of Oz: 10/13/24

The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum and John R. Neill (Illustrator) (1917) is the eleventh Oz book. In this volume Dorothy and the other Emerald City elites get to play amateur sleuth after Ozma and the major magical devices of Oz go missing.

This time is my third read through the novel, though my book diary records it as the second one. My first time was in the before times, before I started writing everything down.

I had just seen Return to Oz (1985) in the theater. At the time I had only read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and seen the MGM film a bunch. So I didn't know any of the other characters but I could see in the credits that there were other Baum books — that Oz was a series.

The local library, about a half mile walk uphill from my house, cleverly put out all their Oz books for check out. I recalled how Ozma was "missing" in the movie and spotted The Lost Princess of Oz. It seemed like the logical book to go with. Yup, for my second literary journey to Oz, I picked the eleventh book.

My mind was blown. Dorothy was living in the Emerald City with her aunt and uncle. She was a princess of Oz! Toto could talk (but didn't want to). I tore through the book in one sitting and had to read through the other books. I had know how things got to this point.

After reading the nine books between Wizard of... and Lost Princess of..., I re-read this volume again in 1989. Although I remember loving it, I had basically forgotten everything else about it. Funny, how I remember the circumstances of reading it but not what I'd read.

This book opens with Ozma being late for her appointments. Dorothy goes looking for her and can't find her anywhere. Not only is Ozma missing but so is her Magic Painting and the Wizard's bag of tricks. Cut to Glinda's palace and her Book of Records and her magical tools are also missing!

Given that in the ten years between Ozma of Oz (1907) and this one, Ozma has been firmly established as an extremely powerful magical being. Her going missing is an unfathomable puzzle. The magic picture, book of records, as well as a bunch of other magical items being missing, at the same time, should be impossible. Yet, she and the goods are gone.

Dorothy rounds up her usual group of cohorts and declares she's going to go find Ozma. Despite Dorothy's now 17 year record of getting impossible shit down in Oz, the Wizard has the audacity of suggesting that she, a mere "little girl" won't make a "good detective" and goes along with her posse. So, Baum has inadvertently written a cozy.

Another odd cozy element to The Lost Princess of Oz is the inclusion of a secondary but related mystery. In the land of Yip (far corner of Winkie Land, pressed up against the Desert) Cayke has lost her magical dishpan. She and the Frog Man head out to find it.

While a good chunk of Dorothy's wandering into Winkie Land feels like filler, she does actually get some valuable clues from the encounters.

Also in the fashion of the modern (2020s) cozy mystery, the mystery itself is solved at about the two thirds mark of the book. Everything is explained in a very satisfying manner. That just leaves rescuing Ozma and getting the magical stuff back.

The rescue of Ozma borrows heavily from the legend of Momotaro. It could be coincidence, but Baum was living in Los Angeles by this time and certainly had the opportunity to have heard or read a version of the Japanese story. The fact that Ozma ends up springing fully formed from a peach pit is one of a number of reminders in this volume of her life as Tip.

But I feel like there was a huge missed opportunity. When the rescue party have found Ozma they pull Button-Bright out of the hole. There follows a long argument over whether or not Ozma is with him and ends with the suggestion that he is Ozma. To which Button-Bright in an uncharacteristic snark replies, "If I were Ozma, do you think I'd have tumbled into that hole?" That reply isn't something he would normally say but it's definitely something Ozma would.

So in my alternate mental version of this book, Ozma was never captured. Instead, maybe Button-Bright was or maybe it was an illusion of her. Then she dressed up like Button-Bright and decided to have a lark of an adventure incognito while rescuing herself. The pink cloud that comes out of the peach pit was another illusion or it was Button-Bright being rescued.

Like the other books in the Oz series, this one sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. Dorothy, et al, by this time are well established as the elite of Oz, making them privileged travelers (00). Their destination is a rural one far removed from most of Oz civilization (33). Their route there is through the cornfield as evidenced by the numerous discussion of crops at various (FF) stopping points.

The next book is The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918)

Five stars

Comments (0)