According to his son and his widow, the Oz books started as nothing more than a collection of stories told by L. Frank Baum to his young niece (Dorothy) who was dying (I believe of leukemia). He would sit by her bedside each day, trying to keep her mind off of the pain by weaving tales of a young girls adventures in a magical place, ‘over the rainbow’. No deep meanings, no politics. He didn’t even write the stories down until after Dorothy’s death.
I’ve never heard this before. Can you provide a cite?
It is highly unlikely that Baum narrated 14 stories with the complexity of the Oz tales to his niece Dorothy Gage who died in 1898 at the age of 4 months. Although he may have chosen to use her name.
I could be wrong, but I thought she was 4 yrs old? Anyway, they made a movie about it called “The Dreamer of Oz”, starring John Ritter as Baum. The ads purported it to be a true biographical account, although I suppose some license was taken. I really don’t know. It also claimed that the first book was rejected by every publisher he sent it to and that he financed the first printing himself with money borrowed from family and friends.
The Dreamer of Oz was largely fiction, and the connection with Dorothy Gage entirely so. The Baum family never told any such story (unless, perhaps, one of the modern descendants got the story from The Dreamer of Oz).
Perhaps you’re confusing “The Wizard of Oz” with “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” Lewis Carroll came up with most of the story while rowing a canoe with Alice Liddell and her sisters. Later she asked him to compile them into a book.
By the way, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is not a satire on the French Revolution, but The Marvelous Land of Oz and The Magic of Oz both have satires on revolutions in general.