L. Frank Baum



Lyman (long for "L.") Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author, best known for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz -- a work so popular that, in fact, he was chained to the series and wrote Oz book after Oz book while longing to write anything else. Which helps explain what a Continuity Snarl the Oz books are. Before being utterly trapped by Oz, he wrote a number of other works, such as The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.

Works by L. Frank Baum with their own trope pages include:

 * Land of Oz series, including
 * The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
 * The Marvelous Land of Oz

Other works by L. Frank Baum provide examples of:

 * Cameo Prop: Baum died before MGM's version of The Wizard of Oz was filmed, but, in a remarkable coincidence, Frank Morgan as Professor Marvel wore a secondhand coat that turned out to have belonged to the author. (It's true; Snopes confirms it.)
 * Cloudcuckooland: A lot of his fictional countries, but especially Mo in The Magical Monarch of Mo. For point of reference, this is a place where the treatment for sore throat is to remove a person's neck, turn it inside out, put it out to cure, turn it right-side-in again, and put the person's neck back. You can also get out of a deep pit by pushing the side so hard it flips the pit upside-down so you're at the top, not the bottom.
 * Level Ate
 * The Mirror Shows Your True Self: In Queen Zixi of Ix, Queen Zixi can only make herself look beautiful to others because of this trope. Her reflection shows her true age, which is considerable.
 * Offered the Crown: In Queen Zixi of Ix, Bud is offered the crown after the king dies and the laws decree that the forty-seventh person to pass through Nole's eastern gate at sunrise is the new monarch.
 * Public Domain Character: Santa Claus.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Queen Zixi of Ix.
 * Santa Claus: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is a partial Trope Codifier for some of our modern Santa mythos.
 * Vain Sorceress: Queen Zixi of Ix.
 * Wacky Wayside Tribe: The Oz books in particular are loaded with them.