In the early 1980s, the state of the Oz books was grim. Reilly and Lee, who published all of the original books after The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was no longer in operation, and their successors had quietly dropped the books years earlier. Dover had only reprinted the first two Oz books in handsome paperback editions with the color plates. Various other editions of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Marvelous Land of Oz were available, but the only publisher who had all fourteen of the Oz books by L. Frank Baum available was Del Rey, an imprint known more for science fiction than classic children's fantasy. As a result, many stores filed the books in the sci-fi section, not with other children's books. Del Rey's books didn't have color, and they were small, mass market-sized paperbacks. The rest of the Oz books by other authors weren't available at all, and most of the Baum books that were available were not terribly satisfying.

All that changed in 1985. Books of Wonder, the popular New York City children's bookstore, was looking to enter the publishing field with reprints of classic children's books. Since the proprietors of Books of Wonder, Peter Glassman and the late James Carey, were both Oz fans, it seemed a natural fit to start with an Oz book, and so their edition of The Marvelous Land of Oz came out that fall, published in conjunction with William Morrow and Company, a large, established publisher. This edition of The Marvelous Land of Oz was unlike anything that had been available for decades. It purported to be a facsimile of the first edition, and while that wasn't strictly the case, it came close. First, it was a hardcover, clothbound book. While there were probably a few other hardcover editions available at the time, this was the exception, not the rule, as most Oz books were available only in paperback at the time. The cloth was red, with the title and illustrations stamped onto the cloth in navy blue, green, and silver. The last edition to feature this was the first edition, published by Reilly and Britton in 1904. All of John R. Neill's original illustrations, including the sixteen color plates, were included. This was the first hardcover sixteen-plate edition since 1917. And unlike buying one of those early printings it emulated, it was affordable, at only fifteen dollars. (It's gone up a little bit since then, but is still considerably cheaper than actually going out to buy a first edition.) But as I previously mentioned, it wasn't a true facsimile. Notably, it had a modern dust jacket; the title on the front cover was printed in two lines (The Marvelous/Land of Oz, as opposed to the first edition's The/Marvelous/Land of Oz); the color plates were bound in rather than tipped in, and so were not all in the same places as they'd been in the first edition; and the endpapers were blank, instead of awkwardly placing David Montgomery and Fred Stone, the actors who originated the roles of the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow on Broadway, into a John R. Neill drawing. But none of it really mattered. It was a gorgeous, elaborate, and affordable edition of an Oz book that hadn't been available in that form for at least seventy years, and many Oz fans eagerly snatched it up.

The success of The Marvelous Land of Oz told the publishers that they were on the right track, and so they pushed on with other books. They put out new editions of other beloved childhood classics, but Oz was always part of their plans. In 1987, Books of Wonder and Morrow again collaborated to issue a facsimile of an Oz book. This time, it was the book that started it all, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This was the first hardcover, clothbound edition since the first edition in 1900 with all twenty-four color plates and color pictures throughout the text. This edition was also quite affordable, and it also sold well. So Books of Wonder announced plans to publish the rest of Baum's Oz books in a similar format, with all of the original color, by 2000, the centennial of the publication of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In 1989, the third Oz book, Ozma of Oz, came out with all of the color restored to the text illustrations. In 1990, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz was published with the original sixteen painted color plates. The Road to Oz came out in 1991, with no color pictures -- but as in the first edition, the book was printed on colored paper, each signature made up of a different color. In 1993, The Emerald City of Oz was reprinted, with the sixteen painted color plates. The first edition used a metallic green ink on the cover and color plates for highlights and other decorations, and this proved to be too expensive for Books of Wonder and William Morrow to reproduce, so they used a green ink flecked with gold that preseented a similar effect.

By this point, these new/old editions were widely acclaimed in Oz circles, and new books were eagerly awaited by Oz fans. More importantly, the books were also finding their way into the hands of readers who were not as familiar with the Oz books, but were just interested in well-made reproductions of old books. The Books of Wonder/Morrow editions were even showing up in libraries, which increased their exposure even more. It seemed the Books of Wonder/Morrow partnership could do no wrong. But all that would change in 1995, with their publication of the next Oz book, The Patchwork Girl of Oz. Oh, sure, the book looked terrific. Like Ozma of Oz before it, The Patchwork Girl of Oz had not originally been published with inserted color plates. Instead, it had had many of the illustrations within the text printed in color. This made for much color throughout the book, and a very attractive package. No edition of The Patchwork Girl of Oz had been published in color since at least 1935. Color editions of The Patchwork Girl of Oz have always fetched high prices in the antiquarian book market. Therefore, many Oz fans were looking forward to the Books of Wonder/Morrow edition of the book, so that they,too, could buy a color edition.

For the vast majority of the book's buyers, it was a success. Yet a vocal group within Oz fandom noticed something else: The text had been altered. As one should expect in a book that was over eighty years old, some aspects were now a bit dated. This had never been a problem before, but in the case of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, American society had changed enough that the publishers felt that some light editing was justified, so as not to offend people of African descent.

Before talking about whether or not these edits were justified, it would probably help many of my readers to look at what changes were made. The first edit comes when the protagonists, led by the Munchkin boy Ojo, the Shaggy Man, and Scraps, the Patchwork Girl, meet up with a live phonograph player that plays its own record -- in this case, what the record player calls "the latest popular song" in chapter 11, on page 137:

"Ah wants mah Lulu, mah coal-black Lulu;
Ah wants mah loo-loo, loo-loo, loo-loo, Lu!
Al loves mah Lulu, mah coal-black Lulu,
There ain't nobody else loves loo-loo, Lu!"

"Ah want mah Lulu, mah cross-eyed Lulu;
Ah want mah loo-loo, loo-loo, loo-loo, Lu!
Al love mah Lulu, mah cross-eyed Lulu,
There ain't nobody else loves loo-loo, Lu!"

But the big changes came later in the book, in chapter 19. The main characters now consist of Ojo, Scraps, Dorothy, and the Scarecrow, who meet up with a group of people called the Tottenhots. Right away, at least from an early twenty-first century perspective, some might see that this could be a problem, as "Tottenhot" is a pretty obvious play on "Hottentot," a somewhat derogatory term for certain native peoples of South Africa (and which is used, coincidentally, by the Cowardly Lion in the song "If I Were King of the Forest" in the famous 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz). Those suspicions would be confirmed by the first description of the Tottenhots, on page 243 of the original edition: "...out popped a dusky creature, rising its length into the air and then plumping down upon upon the ground just beside the little girl." This was altered in the Books of Wonder/Morrow edition to "...out popped a small creature" (emphasis mine). On the next page, the description continues in the original edition: "Their skins were dusky and their hair stood straight up, like wires, and was brilliant scarlet in color." The edited edition leaves off the first few words: "Their hair stood straight up, like wires, and was brilliant scarlet in color." Later, on page 246, the original edition describes "The little brown folks," but the word "brown" is removed in the Books of Wonder/Morrow edition. Finally, on page 248 of the original edition is a close-up illustration of a Tottenhot, but this was removed for the new edition, with all of the text moved up to cover the gap. (While the original chapter 19 ended about two-thirds of the way down page 252, the edited edition has only four lines of text on the same page.) While this picture is questionable, it could be taken to be of a sterotypical "savage" African. There are two other illustrations of Tottenhots in the book, but they show groups and no one Tottenhot is seen so clearly, so perhaps they were considered to be inoffensive as a result.

Now, that's it. That's all of the changes that were made in The Patchwork Girl of Oz for the Books of Wonder/Morrow edition. Not a lot, really. Yet the vocal critics of this edition would have you believe that the entire book was butchered, and for no justifiable reason. Stephen J. Teller, in reviewing the book for the Winter 1995 issue of The Baum Bugle, the journal of the International Wizard of Oz Club, is probably the most visible critic of this edition. His review is printed on an entire page, yet only two paragraphs were about the appearance of the book and the reproduction of the first edition. The entire rest of the review was devoted to detailing the changes made, and concludes with:

I consider this treatment of Baum and Neill's materials indefensible. Every earlier edition of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, including the recent Del Rey paperback[,] has retained the original text and the original illustrations. To make alterations to an author's text is always wrong; to do it in a "facsimile" is intolerable. Anyone who bought this book under the belief that it was a true facsimile would be justified in demanding his money back.

In my opinion, this criticism is completely out of line. And I believe that I can solve just about every problem any of these critics has with the Books of Wonder/Morrow edition of The Patchwork Girl of Oz. But first, I want to propose counterarguments to some of the complaints people have had with this, starting with some of the comments quoted above in Stephen J. Teller's review. For example:

Every earlier edition of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, including the recent Del Rey paperback[,] has retained the original text and the original illustrations.

To make alterations to an author's text is always wrong...

[T]o do it [make changes] in a "facsimile" is intolerable.

Now, a few other general thoughts some of the Books of Wonder/Morrow detractors have had can be summed up in some thoughts such as these:

If they couldn't publish the book without altering it, then they shouldn't have published it at all.

The book is ruined forever, since we're never going to get the old version again.

There should at least be a warning in the front that the book has been edited.

What the publishers is doing is censorship.

And finally, getting back to Stephen J. Teller's comments in The Baum Bugle:

Anyone who bought this book under the belief that it was a true facsimile would be justified in demanding his money back.

Page 137

Page 243

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Page 252

While I'm at it, let me take the opportunity to make a correction to the Books of Wonder/Morrow edition that perhaps should have been made in the new edition. In the first edition of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, a printing error put the words "Chapter Three" into the text. This was corrected in later editions, but was reintroduced in the Books of Wonder/Morrow edition (perhaps this is being too authentic). You can download the corrected page by clicking on the picture below:

Page 35

So, was that it for altered Oz books from these publishers? Not quite, and the Tottenhots were involved again. A single Tottenhot makes a cameo appearance in Rinkitink in Oz, published by Books of Wonder/Morrow in 1998. While no text was altered, the picture was deleted -- and this time, there was a notice on the copyright page stating that a picture had been cut. If you want to print out that page, too, here it is, from a 1970s edition in my collection:

Rinkitink in Oz, Page 295

Later on, Books of Wonder, on their own, also published some of the books by Ruth Plumly Thompson. Since these were not as elaborate as the Baum books co-published with Morrow/HarperCollins, and were aimed more at the Oz collector's market than the general population, they were not altered. However, two of them did contain notices about cultural insensitivities that might be offensive to some readers. These were The Royal Book of Oz, which has a faux-Chinese culture which the Scarecrow visits; and The Silver Princess of Oz, which has the Red Jinn keeping slaves.

I suspect there will always be those who disagree with the alterations made in these editions, and they can never be fully satisfied, even with the original pages available on this page. This is too bad, as these issues are not so clearly black and white (if you'll pardon the expression) as they seem to believe. Children's literature, like everything else in our culture, has undergone many changes in the last century. This has often been for the better, as we reexamine what it is to be a human being, and take into account the feelings of others. It is fortunate that the Oz series has been able to survive this transition, with only a few small changes to two books to make then acceptable. I hope that this column, and the availability of the altered pages, will soften a few attitudes towards Books of Wonder and their publishing partners, and the people involved. This way, you can have your cake and eat it, too.

—Marc Berezin

Yes, I was referring to the Ann Arbor edition of The Patchwork Girl of Oz — a 2003 paperback with a new introduction by Robert A. Baum, ISBN 1-58726-038-7, for those who are curious — and that edition does have the unaltered text and the deleted illustration. Their edition of Rinkitink in Oz, however, did not restore the deleted Tottenhot picture.

—Laura Gjovaag

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that Laura is not only my wife, but she also read this column before I posted it, and offered a small handful of comments.

—Elayne Riggs

—Scott Andrew Hutchins

In case anyone was wondering, Scott didn't spell a certain racial epithet with mostly dashes. He wrote the word as originally written. I rewrote it the way you see it above.

—Kevenn

Good point, Kevenn. I also understand the changes that they made although I don't like it when people try to cut and rewrite art just so someone won't be offended but truely I have mixed feelings. People can try to change the world but most of the time they really shouldn't.

—Ozdude

The problem as I see it, Ozdude, is that this isn't a yes-or-no issue. There can be options, and in this case I think the Books of Wonder edition is an option. And for those who are so bothered by it, I'm offering the option to get the book and still have the original as well. I'd say this is a win-win situation, but I know some folks are going to be unhappy no matter what I do or say here.

I understand what you mean. It really is a win-win situation. If you are offended by the original, buy the edited. If not, get the original, or get both. Either way everyone wins and as you said there will always be people unhappy, but if we can't help them be happier then it's their fault. Kinda like the situation with The David statue on The Simpsons.

—Ozdude

—Lena

—Ruth Berman

Thank you, Eric, for a very well-written, well considered commentary. You are correct in that there was a very lengthy, in-depth discussion about each and every one of the edits that were made. And by no means were our decisions unanimous. I, like Scott Hutchins, did not feel that the Lulu song needed to be changed in light of the character's dislike of it, but others at Morrow — particularly those who worked closely with the library market — felt it would be a problem. You are also correct in your statement that it was the folks in marketing who labeled the books as facsimiles. I felt strongly that this word should not be used — particularly in the case of Patchwork Girl — but somehow the word still got included on the dust jacket. The fact that this has not since been corrected reflects the unwillingness of HarperCollins — the publisher who bought William Morrow and Company — to spend any money to correct or change the current printings. One of the biggest complaints I recieve

—Peter Glassman