'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Denslow Illustrated Edition' Restores Baum's 1900 Original, Silver Shoes and All

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Denslow Illustrated Edition" Restores Baum's 1900 Original, Silver Shoes and All

All 23 of W. W. Denslow's full-page plates restored from the first edition, with a "Book vs Film" appendix and discussion questions throughout

NEW YORK, Oct. 30, 2026, Before the movie, there was the book, and it is stranger, funnier, and better. A new Companion Classics edition, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Denslow Illustrated Edition, presents L. Frank Baum's 1900 original complete and unabridged, 24 chapters, about 39,000 words, with W. W. Denslow's revolutionary art restored from the first edition: 23 full-page plates including the frontispiece, Denslow's designed title page, and his chapter-title pages, printed the way readers first saw them in 1900.

And yes, the shoes are silver. In Baum's book Dorothy wears the Silver Shoes of the Wicked Witch of the East, the Winged Monkeys have a story of their own, the Wizard appears in four different forms, and the journey continues for half a book after the point where the film wraps up. A full appendix, "Book vs Film," walks through the differences. No film material appears anywhere in the edition: no ruby slippers, no green-skinned witch, no film songs or dialogue.

The companion material, all of it original to this edition, includes an introduction on Baum and Denslow's famous "seesaw" partnership; a Who's Who; five explainers, the 1900 George M. Hill edition and its revolutionary color design, Denslow's art-nouveau style, Baum's road to Oz, America in 1900, and a map of the thirteen Oz books that followed; a short life of Baum; a note on the period; and 26 discussion questions for reading groups and families.

Alongside the book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Book Club Kit offers the edition's discussion material as a printable PDF for reading groups and families. The kit is available for $7 through the editor's Payhip store: https://payhip.com/b/7Zpoz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Denslow Illustrated Edition is available now as an eBook ($9.99) through Payhip: https://payhip.com/b/Hpo7x, paperback and hardcover print editions follow on Amazon. Baum (died 1919) and Denslow (died 1915) are public domain worldwide, including life-plus-seventy jurisdictions; all companion material is original to this edition. This is an independent edition of a public-domain work, not affiliated with Warner Bros. or the MGM film.

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

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Denslow Illustrated Edition, L. Frank Baum (author), Horace Harriott Jr. (editor). Companion Classics, independently published, October 2026. Text and illustrations: the 1900 first edition (George M. Hill Company, Chicago); about 39,000 words; interior proof 222 pages, 6 x 9 in.