'Ozma of Oz, The John R. Neill Illustrated Edition' Presents Baum's Third Oz Book in the Text and Art of the 1907 First Edition

Built from the Reilly & Britton first edition, with all 41 of John R. Neill's colour plates, a series map of all fourteen Oz books, and 50 chapter-fenced discussion questions

NEW YORK, Oct. 30, 2026, Dorothy Gale is going back, she just doesn't know it yet. Blown overboard in a storm on the voyage to Australia, she washes ashore in the Land of Ev in a chicken coop, beside a yellow hen named Billina who can suddenly talk, and who has strong opinions about breakfast. A new Companion Classics edition, Ozma of Oz, The John R. Neill Illustrated Edition, presents the complete novel, all twenty-one chapters, 38,114 words, unabridged, in the text of the 1907 first edition (Reilly & Britton), taken from Project Gutenberg eBook #33361 and collated against a scan of the 1907 first edition held by the New York Public Library. The edition's collation note is plain about its method: the first-edition witness governed throughout, because the Gutenberg copy-text derives from a later printing, its back pages advertise Oz books through 1913.

Ev is not Oz, and its wonders are stranger. There is a clockwork man named Tiktok, wound up with three keys and warranted for a thousand years. There is Princess Langwidere, who keeps thirty heads in cupboards and would like to add Dorothy's to the collection. And across the desert lies a royal family in enchanted exile: the Queen of Ev and her ten children were sold by King Evoldo to the Nome King Roquat, who turned them into ornaments in his underground palace. Princess Ozma of Oz, crossing the Deadly Desert at the head of her army, has come to demand them back, and the Nome King smiles, and offers a bargain: enter the palace, guess which ornaments the Ev family have become, and free one with every right touch, eleven guesses each. Guess wrong too often, and the palace gains new ornaments. L. Frank Baum's third Oz book (1907) is the one where the series becomes a world: Dorothy's return, Ozma's first campaign as ruler, and the introduction of Tiktok, the wind-up Mechanical Man who has often been called one of literature's first robots, a claim this edition traces carefully rather than simply repeats.

The art is the first edition's own, counted leaf by leaf for this book and restored from that printing: all forty-one of John R. Neill's full-page colour plates, including the frontispiece (one plate is printed in blue duotone, exactly as issued), both full-page line plates, the thirty-nine text illustrations, and Neill's decorated chapter head for every one of the twenty-one chapters, 110 pieces in all. Baum's own spelling is kept throughout: the clockwork man's name is Tiktok, exactly as Baum and his printed label had it (the one contents-versus-heading variant, the chapter head reads "Tiktok the Machine Man", is disclosed in the edition, which follows the chapter head).

Around the novel, the companion material, all of it original to this edition, includes an introduction on Dorothy's return and how this book widened Oz forever; a Who's Who of the cast, Dorothy, Billina, Tiktok, Ozma, the Nome King, Princess Langwidere, the Hungry Tiger, the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion; five explainers, covering the first edition itself, Tiktok and the word "robot," the countries around Oz, and the rules of the Nome King's guessing game; a short life of Baum; a note on the period; a census of all the plates; a series map of all fourteen Oz books; and fifty discussion questions, fenced chapter by chapter so nothing is spoiled early.

Alongside the book, the Ozma of Oz, Book Club Kit offers the edition's discussion material as a printable PDF (18 pages, US Letter) for book clubs, families, classrooms, and read-alouds: a three-meeting plan (The Land of Ev, chapters 1-7; The Rescue and the Giant, chapters 8-14; Purple, Green and Gold, chapters 15-21), the edition's Who's Who, a chapter map of all twenty-one chapters, and the fifty discussion questions fenced by meeting, plus "Spot the Plate," a game built from five of Neill's colour plates: which chapter is each plate from? Answers at the back. The kit is available for $7 through the editor's Payhip store: [links pending parent]

Ozma of Oz, The John R. Neill Illustrated Edition is available now as an eBook ($9.99) through Payhip: [links pending parent], and in The Classics and Companions Shop on the editor's Linktree. Print editions follow on Amazon (paperback, $14.99; hardcover, $24.99). The text and illustrations are public domain worldwide (L. Frank Baum died in 1919; John R. Neill died in 1943); all companion material is original to this edition. This is an independent publication, not affiliated with Warner Bros. or MGM, and no film material is used anywhere in it.

About the editor

Horace Harriott Jr. is a New York-based author and editor of more than two dozen books, including The Side Hustle Handbook, Master Playbook and The Ultimate Commissary Cookbook. This edition is part of his Companion Classics series of reading-together editions of public-domain classics.

About the book

Ozma of Oz, The John R. Neill Illustrated Edition, With an Introduction, a Who's Who, Explainers, a Series Map of the Oz Books, and Discussion Questions, L. Frank Baum (author), John R. Neill (illustrator), Horace Harriott Jr. (editor). Companion Classics, independently published, October 2026. Text: the first edition (Reilly & Britton, 1907), via Project Gutenberg eBook #33361, collated against the 1907 first edition; 21 chapters; 38,114 words; interior proof 288 pages, 6 x 9 in.