wonder-tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident. [Illustration] Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to pleasure children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out. L. FRANK BAUM. CHICAGO, APRIL, 1900. [Illustration] Copyright 1899 By L. Frank Baum and W. W. Denslow. All rights reserved [Illustration] LIST OF CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.--The Cyclone. CHAPTER II.--The Council with The Munchkins. CHAPTER III.--How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow. CHAPTER IV.--The Road Through the Forest. CHAPTER V.--The Rescue of the Tin Woodman. CHAPTER VI.--The Cowardly Lion. CHAPTER VII.--The Journey to The Great Oz. CHAPTER VIII.--The Deadly Poppy Field. CHAPTER IX.--The Queen of the Field Mice. CHAPTER X.--The Guardian of the Gates. CHAPTER XI.--The Wonderful Emerald City of Oz. CHAPTER XII.--The Search for the Wicked Witch. CHAPTER XIII.--How the Four were Reunited. CHAPTER XIV.--The Winged Monkeys. CHAPTER XV.--The Discovery of Oz the Terrible. CHAPTER XVI.--The Magic Art of the Great Humbug. CHAPTER XVII.--How the Balloon was Launched. CHAPTER XVIII.--Away to the South. CHAPTER XIX.--Attacked by the Fighting Trees. CHAPTER XX.--The Dainty China Country. CHAPTER XXI.--The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts. CHAPTER XXII.--The Country of the Quadlings. CHAPTER XXIII.--The Good Witch grants Dorothy's Wish. CHAPTER XXIV.--Home Again. _This book is dedicated to my good friend & comrade. My Wife L.F.B._ Chapter I. The Cyclone. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cooking stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar--except a small hole, dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap-door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole. When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else. [Illustration: "_She caught Toto by the ear._"] When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled, now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt...