Frank Baum set out to write 'a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nighmares are left out'. Published in May 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz had sold 100,000 copies by the following January, proving that this was exactly what his young readers wanted. The story of Dorothy, carried by a cyclone from a her uncle's Kansas farm to the Land of Oz, and her adventures on the yellow brick road with the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion, has been an firm favourite with children ever since. The original illustrations by W. W. Denslow, which are reflected in the film and stage versions, have often been imitated but never surpassed.
