Most people are familiar with the land of Oz by way of the classic 1939 film. But the film's basis was only the first of fourteen books about Oz in which Baum developed his vision of a socialist paradise and which garnered an immense and loyal following.

The first novel of the series, The Wizard of Oz (1900), introduces Dorothy Gale, who is whisked to the land of Oz, where she meets Glinda the Witch of the North, the Munchkins, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, and a host of characters who didn't appear in the 1939 MGM film. The Emerald City of Oz (1910), the sixth book in the series, finds Dorothy, Aunt Em, and Uncle Henry arriving from Kansas to encounter the wicked Nome King's plot to conquer Oz. In the final novel, Glinda of Oz (1920), Dorothy and Princess Ozma travel to an enchanted island to prevent a battle between the Skeezers and the Flatheads. Tapping into a deeply rooted desire in himself and his readers to live in a peaceful country in which interpersonal relations were based not on commodity exchange, but on the sharing of talents and gifts, Baum's imaginative creation, like all great utopian literature, holds out the possibility for change.