Glinda of Oz was published by Reilly & Lee in 1920, a year after Baum’s death in May 1919. It is the fourteenth and final Oz book written by Baum himself (the publisher continued the series with other authors, most notably Ruth Plumly Thompson, who wrote nineteen additional volumes). The posthumous publication gives the book an elegiac quality — it is the last vision of Oz from its creator, and its themes of trapped characters, failing magic, and the limits of power resonate with biographical context.
Dorothy and Ozma travel to prevent a war between the Skeezers (who live on an island that can be submerged underwater) and the Flatheads (who keep their brains in cans atop their flat skulls). But Queen Coo-ee-oh of the Skeezers submerges the island before the conflict can be resolved, and then is transformed into a swan — leaving Dorothy and Ozma trapped underwater in a city whose magic they do not understand and whose operator no longer exists.
The novel is unusual in the series for its darkness: the protagonists are genuinely helpless for much of the narrative, the magic that usually provides easy solutions fails or has unintended consequences, and Glinda herself must struggle to find answers. The book’s resolution requires the combined efforts of nearly every major magical character in Oz — suggesting that the problems have grown beyond any single character’s power to solve.
Collecting Glinda of Oz
First edition (Reilly & Lee, Chicago, 1920): Cloth binding with pictorial cover, illustrated by John R. Neill.
Market values:
- First edition, first state: $200–$800
- Good condition: $100–$350
- With dust jacket: $500–$2,000
- Poor/worn: $40–$100