He put his children to sleep with tales he told: Who is Frank Baum?

Frank Baum's tale of Oz the Wizard is considered one of the masterpieces of world children's literature today.

Author Frank Baum died on May 6, 1919, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

Childhood Years and Introduction to Literature

Baum was born in 1856 as the seventh member of a family of nine. He was of Scottish, Irish, and English descent. Due to his religious parents, he spent his childhood adhering to religious teachings. His two brothers died before he was younger. The fact that his father was successful in more than one job prepared the environment for him to spend his childhood years away from financial concerns. Although not financially, due to physical problems, he had to receive special education while his siblings were studying in New York. In the following years, he enrolled in the military academy. The strict discipline here affected him psychologically and caused him to have a heart attack. He soon returned home.

One of his father's ventures was to buy a printing press. For Baum, it meant an early interest in writing. He started a magazine with his brothers and even had the opportunity to publish some advertisements for small businesses. At the age of 20, he began to engage in poultry farming, which was popular at the time. At the age of 30, he would publish his first book on this subject.

His Love for the Theater

Because of his lifelong love of theater, he financed musicals, often at a financial loss. Because of this, he got into trouble and could not pay his debts. He sold the copyrights of his great works and sold cheap editions of his books, but his finances did not improve for a long time.

Baum didn't just contribute financially to the scenes, despite his misfortunes (which I'll touch on later). He acted in plays under the stage names Louis Baum and George Brooks. In 1880, his father built him a theater in Richburg, New York. Baum began writing plays and gathering a community to play in those plays. He advertised his services to teach theater, including stage management, playwriting, directing, translating (French, German, and Italian), revision, and operettas.

Their bad luck

While on tour, Baum's theater in Richburg ironically caught fire during a production of the theater drama Matches, and the only known copies and costumes of Baum's scripts, including Matches, were destroyed in addition to the theater.

A local theater company tricked Baum into replenishing costumes with the promise that he would be given the lead role. Frustrated, Baum left the theater temporarily and took a job as a clerk at his brother-in-law's dry goods company in Syracuse. Among his professions after working as a clerk, the store he opened with his wife, and the bankruptcy of the newspaper he edited are among his misfortunes.

Wizard of Oz Achievement

"The Magnificent Wizard of Oz," published in 1900, was critically acclaimed. It remained on the bestseller list for two years and generated significant financial revenue. He succeeded in creating American tales in his works, in which he aimed to remove violence and romance from children's stories. In 1905 he announced plans for an Oz amusement park to be built on an island, but financial troubles did not allow it.

Death

On May 5, 1919, he fell into a coma due to a stroke. He died the next day at the age of 62. Behind: He left 41 novels (excluding four lost, unpublished novels), 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 screenplays, in addition to his masterpiece 14-book Oz series. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen; The 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book marked a turning point in 20th-century cinema.