Originally published in The Baum Bugle, vol. 65, no. 1 (Winter 2021), pg. 41
Citations
Chicago 17th ed.:
Albright, Jane. Review of The Santa Claus Stories, by L. Frank Baum, Baum Bugle 65, no. 1 (2021): 41.
MLA 9th ed.:
Albright, Jane. Review of The Santa Claus Stories, by L. Frank Baum, The Baum Bugle, vol. 65, no. 1, 2021, p. 41.
(Note: typographical errors have been left in place to accurately reflect the printed version.)
THE SANTA CLAUS STORIES by L. Frank Baum. Edited by James Romag. Wordfire Press, 2020. 256 pages. Hardcover, $25.99. ISBN: 9781680571042. Paperback, $14.99. ISBN: 9781680571028.
Editor James Romag has assembled L. Frank Baum’s writings about Santa Claus into a single volume, which was published in time for the most recent holiday gift-giving season. His three-page introduction explains that these Baum texts “helped forge our collective popular image of the legend known as Santa Claus.” With The Santa Claus Stories, Romag seeks to resurface this aspect of Baum’s legacy that has long been overshadowed by Oz.
The contents include an untitled poem that was published in The Shaggy Man of Oz (1949), “Little Bun Rabbit” from Mother Goose in Prose (1897), The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902), ”A Kidnapped Santa Claus” (1904), a three-chapter excerpt from The Road to Oz (1909), and “How the Wogglebug and His Friends Visited Santa Claus” (1904). While none of this is new to a seasoned Baum collector, this is the first time all this material has been presented together. I wondered why the introduction to the Christmas Stocking Series wasn’t included. It’s possible the editor was unfamiliar with it, but more likely he left it out to concentrate on the straight fantasy stories about Santa himself.
The focus is on Baum’s writing, but each piece is presented with black-and-white reproductions of the original illustrations. Unfortunately, image quality varies. An embossed book cover, for instance, is hard to reproduce in black-and-white halftone. The endpaper artwork from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is quite faint, as are other reproductions of Mary Cowles Clark’s delicate watercolors. One of her paintings is used for the dust jacket’s design, however, giving the reader a stronger idea of what these images originally looked like. A final Clark illustration is extremely low resolution, giving it an out-of-focus softness that had me reaching for my reading glasses. (They didn’t help.) “A Kidnapped Santa Claus” opens with a basically illegible reproduction of the Delineator table of contents. A similarly challenging reproduction of a “What Did the Wogglebug Say?” contest entry form accompanies “How the Wogglebug and His Friends Visited Santa Claus.” In that case, Romag made the sound decision to also reset much of the text so we can read it. That story, originally appearing as a full-page newspaper comic, is accompanied by details from Walt McDougall’s illustrations. Line art by Frederick Richardson, and even more so by John R. Neill, is more consistent with the way these illustrations originally appeared.
Author Dean Wesley Smith provides a short foreword. A brief editor’s note for each entry offers context and notes spelling irregularities; the notes do not trace publication history beyond the first appearance, which would have been a plus. Baum’s own introductions are here, as are meaningful details like the Wogglebug contest material. A list of original publication histories, a three-paragraph biography of Baum, and single paragraphs about each of the five illustrators—Maxfield Parrish, Mary Cowles Clark, Frederick Richardson, John R. Neill, and Walt McDougall—end the book.
Beneath the dust jacket is a plain gray cover and blank endpapers. Baum’s biography on the back flap of the jacket is the same as that used inside the book, but it is presented with a different Baum portrait.
I was happy to see Marcus Mebes, for the International Wizard of Oz Club, and Chris Glasgow, for the Oz Museum, thanked for their assistance.
To appreciate Baum’s contribution to Santa lore, this book does the trick. I recommend The Santa Claus Stories to anyone interested in reading these stories in a handy compilation. To fully appreciate the beauty of the illustrated originals, you’ll need…the originals. But as I’ve learned in my own fifty years of collecting, finding those original books and stories can be easier said than done.
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