The Emerald City of Oz. by Baum, L. Frank - 1910

Chicago: Reilly & Britton, 1910. First edition, first state of the sixth Oz book, with the colored pictorial front panel and 16 elaborate full-page color illustrations by John R. Neill. Octavo, original blue cloth, illustrated with 16 color plates with metallic green ink and numerous black & white drawings by John R. Neill. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the the ownership leaf, "Martha Kneedler, Having been presented by her own true lover L. Frank Baum August 1910." The recipient, Martha Kneedler, was the daughter of Baum's close personal friend Major William L. Kneedler, a military medical officer who served as President Taft's personal physician. The inscription was likely in jest as Martha would have been only 16 in 1910. In very good condition with the plates in fine condition. An exquisite example, The Emerald City of Oz was intended to be the final volume in the series, and so Neil embellished his plates with the most elaborate detail of any other volume. Even later printings of the present volume did not include these elaborate designs. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. Scarce and desirable. No other inscribed first printing is known to have appeared at auction. Leaving their financial troubles behind, Dorothy Gale, Uncle Henry and Aunty Em move to Oz. As they tour the magical land on their way to the Emerald City, Dorothy and her family visit never-before seen strange and wonderful parts of Oz, including a city of paper dolls, a city of jigsaw people, and a city of bunnies. Meanwhile, the wicked Nome king plots to conquer Oz and enslave its people, and prepares to invade the Emerald City just as Dorothy and her family arrive. Baum intended to conclude his popular series with this volume. By the tale's end, the sorceress Glinda has made the fairyland invisible to the outside world, and Dorothy and her aunt and uncle, facing eviction from their Kansas farm, have settled in the Emerald City to stay. Baum's own bankruptcy the next year, however, would mean he "had no choice but to call once more upon the magic of Oz in an attempt to restore his fortunes" (Eyles, 48).