The Wonderful Wizard
of Chittenango
 L. (Lyman)
Frank Baum (1856-1919) was born in Chittenango, New
York. He became a prolific and popular author of over 50
books for children as well as dozens of short stories
and poems. (Belatedly, he has been critically
appreciated by the wogglebugs of academia.) He is best
remembered for the Oz books, most notably, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
published in 1900, widely read and enjoyed, and then
recycled as the well-known MGM film, The Wizard of Oz,
in 1939—a classic with an unforgettable cast and
brilliant music.
Baum wrote many other works for young readers. Many of
these books he wrote under various pen-names, including
“Edith van Dyne,” the name he used for his popular Aunt Jane’s Nieces
series. This series of ten books was published between
1906 and 1918 and was meant to appeal to the same
audience as the popular Little Women and Little Men by
Lousia May Alcott from the previous century.
The AJN series
was extremely popular at the time, even outselling
Baum’s Oz books. The series revolves around the travels
and adventures of three teenaged girls, Louise, Beth,
and Patsy. In the second book of the series, Aunt Jane’s Nieces Abroad
(1906), the girls travel to Naples where they witness an
eruption of Mt. Vesuvius:
Toward midnight the wind
changed, driving the cloud of ashes to the southward
and sufficiently clearing the atmosphere to allow the
angry glow of the crater to be distinctly seen. Now it
shot a pillar of fire thousands of feet straight into
the heavens; then it would darken and roll skyward
great clouds that were illumined by the showers of
sparks accompanying them…
…It was four o'clock on Sunday
morning when Vesuvius finally reached the climax of
her travail. With a deep groan of anguish the mountain
burst asunder, and from its side rolled a great stream
of molten lava that slowly spread down the slope,
consuming trees, vineyards and dwellings in its path
and overwhelming the fated city of Bosco-Trecase.
Our friends marked the course of
destruction by watching the thread of fire slowly
wander down the mountain slope. They did not know of
the desolation it was causing, but the sight was
terrible enough to inspire awe in every breast...
And so forth for quite a number of pages. Interestingly,
it is an accurate description of the highly destructive eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in
April, 1906. Baum did not have to resort at all to
his fertile imagination since he was actually present
during the event! He and his wife, Maud Gage-Baum, had
embarked on a six-month trip mainly in Italy, Egypt,
Switzerland and France, and they were in Naples during the
eruption. Mrs. Baum wrote up the trip in a series of
letters written from abroad for family and friends back
home. In 1907 her husband published the letters privately
as a book: In Other Lands Than Ours. He wrote a short
introduction and illustrated it with his own photography,
including one shot entitled “On the smoking hot lava of
Bosco Trecase,” the very same town “overwhelmed” in his
adventures of Louise, Beth, and Patsy. L. Frank had simply
used his wife’s very real travel diary as source material
for his own story. He says in his introduction to her
book:
Her observation of details is
to me remarkable, and her artistic instinct rings
positive and true. No bit of natural beauty escaped
her eager eyes, and much that I myself had forgotten
or overlooked comes back to me as I read her letters.
Others have perhaps written of
these things and places in a more scholarly way, but
her vivid descriptions of what her own eyes beheld
will, I am sure, be treasured by those near and dear
friends who love her and rejoice that she had such
opportunity to witness these old world scenes, which
so evidently delighted her generous and appreciative
heart.
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