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L. Frank Baum

Travelling Down the Yellow Brick Road with Dina Schiff Massachi 

July 06, 2024 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

I first met Dina Schiff Massachi about ten years ago while she was pursuing her M.A. degree in English at UNC Charlotte.  In addition to taking several graduate courses from me, she worked with me on a directed reading project dealing with feminist utopias in American literature. As part of this project, she studied the feminist themes that run through several of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books.  In the years since then, Dina has gone from being one of my graduate students to becoming a professional colleague of mine, but our shared interest in Baum’s Oz series has continued unabated.  

About a year and a half ago, Dina and I began working on a scholarly edition of Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for Broadview Press’s English Studies series.  As described on their website, the Broadview editions feature the work itself as well as “an introduction, explanatory notes, chronology, bibliography, and various appendices; the series has been particularly acclaimed for the inclusion in each volume of a wide range of background contextual materials contemporaneous with the work.” I am happy to report that our edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is scheduled to be released on August 23, 2024.  For more information about this edition, please click on the following link:  https://broadviewpress.com/product/the-wonderful-wizard-of-oz/#tab-description

Dina and I are especially pleased with the primary source documents that we provide in the appendices.  These include related texts by Baum, such as an essay he wrote titled “Modern Fairy Tales.” We provide a selection of writings that influenced Baum, including a substantial excerpt on “Witchcraft” from Matilda Joslyn Gage’s Woman, Church and State. Gage was Baum’s mother-in-law, and her writings influenced Baum’s feminist values and his portrayal of witches in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  Our edition also includes several of the contemporary reviews of Baum’s book.

Given the prominent role that illustrations play in the original version of the book, Dina and I are thrilled that our edition includes all of W. W. Denslow’s in-text illustrations.  Denslow’s original color plates are also included in a separate section.  Marcus Mebes helped us with the illustrations. 

The process of co-editing the Broadview edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was completely collaborative from writing the initial proposal to proofreading the final pages. We met on a regular basis and made all of the editorial decisions together, but we divvied up some of the work—I wrote the introduction while Dina took charge of writing the annotations.  

As a professor, I take great pleasure and satisfaction when my former students become scholars in their own right.  Such is the case with Dina. Over the past decade, she has achieved recognition as an authority on Baum and his Oz series.  We worked together as equals on this scholarly edition.  In a sense, editing this edition has been our own Storied Charlotte journey down our own yellow brick road.  

Tags: Broadview PressL. Frank BaumWonderful Wizard of Oz
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