2. Baum never intended to write a sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Lyman Frank Baum was a prolific writer. In addition to the 14 Oz books, Baum wrote another 41 novels, more than 200 poems, over 80 short stories, and over 40 scripts for stage plays and films. After the success of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Baum turned to other children’s books, as well as scripts. He created other fantasy worlds for children, including the land of Ix and the North Pole residence of Santa Claus, and The Master Key, an adventure/fantasy story targeted towards boys.
It was the thousands of letters sent to Baum and his publisher begging for more stories of Dorothy and her friends in Oz which motivated Baum to write the first sequel, The Marvelous Land of Oz, in 1904. Several times over the years he declared that he was finished with the land of Oz, only to acquiesce to the demands of children for more stories and write yet another sequel. He used the famous fairy tales from Europe’s Grimm brothers and Hans Christian Andersen as the basis of his stories and deliberately avoided presenting them as fables teaching morals to his readers.