- Hardcover: 285 pages
- Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (May 1 1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0803212216
- ISBN-13: 978-0803212213
- Product Dimensions: 24.4 x 16.5 x 2.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 676 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Library Journal
Baum, best known for his writings about a place called Oz, here takes a humorous look at South Dakota life in 1890. The assorted tales of landlady Sairy Ann Bilkins were originally published as a column in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, and several were collected and printed as a single volume in 1941. This, however, is the first complete edition. It additionally includes period illustrations and annotations by scholar Nancy Tystad Koupal.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"It is widely known that L. Frank Baum spent several years in South Dakota before moving to Chicago, where he wrote the Oz books that made him famous. . . . Koupal carefully lays out the complexities and ambiguities of Baum?s thinking by providing us with the full texts of Baum?s columns published weekly in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer between January 1890 and February 1891, and by adding her own commentary and a glossary to place these writings in context. Entitled ?Our Landlady,? the column described in a generally humorous vein the conversations and activities of four fictional characters?the landlady and three of her regular boarders?and a wide variety of prominent local residents of Aberdeen."?Great Plains Quarterly (Great Plains Quarterly )
"Readers will be grateful to Koupal for this amusing and edifying supplement to our understanding of one of the giants of American popular culture."?Western Historical Quarterly (Western Historical Quarterly )
"Baum?s humor is of the biting kind. . . . Readers of Our Landlady will find the beginnings of Baum?s wonderful world of humor as well as an informative look at life in a prairie state."?South Dakota History (South Dakota History )
"Koupal is an admirable editor. It?s hard to see how the work could be improved."?Baum Bugle (Baum Bugle )
"Readers will be grateful to Koupal for this amusing and edifying supplement to our understanding of one of the giants of American popular culture."?Western Historical Quarterly (Western Historical Quarterly )
"Baum?s humor is of the biting kind. . . . Readers of Our Landlady will find the beginnings of Baum?s wonderful world of humor as well as an informative look at life in a prairie state."?South Dakota History (South Dakota History )
"Koupal is an admirable editor. It?s hard to see how the work could be improved."?Baum Bugle (Baum Bugle )
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Historically fascinating,
By
This review is from: Our Landlady (Hardcover)
L. Frank Baum is known best for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a children's fantasy that has achieved classic status through its multiple reprintings and because of the movies based on it, including the MGM classic The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland and the 70s musical The Wiz. Part of the appeal of Baum's fantasy is that it is quintessentially American, set in the heart of the midwest, and in some ways deals with the American spirit. Academic commentators have gone further in their study of Baum's work, saying that it can be read as a treatise on the America of the late 1800s, citing various political undercurrents in the novel. These arguments are based on Baum's work as a newspaper publisher, editor and columnist in South Dakota. Now the University of Nebraska press has made available a collection of the "Our Landlady" columns[1] written by Baum from January 1890 to February 1891--forty-eight installments about a fictitious boarding house in the town of Aberdeen where Baum's newspaper was published.The columns are edited and annotated by Nancy Tystad Koupal, who does an outstanding job of placing the column in the appropriate time setting, explaining to the modern reader the differences that one hundred years have made on newspapers, political parties, mercantile exchange, and other aspects of frontier life. This is especially important in the context of the "Our Landlady" columns which were intended as editorials on the doings of city hall and the state legislature. The column also mentions, by name, actual townspeople in Aberdeen, and these people are described by both Koupal's annotations and in a separate index of important people and places of South Dakota in 1890. For adult readers of Baum's children books, these columns are a rare insight into the mind of the author, dealing as they do with his strongest personal opinions. His advocacy of suffrage and the rights of women help explain the strong female characters in the Oz books (best seen in the strength of Glenda the Good's magic compared to the ineffectual humbuggery of the Wizard). One can also see his interest in the future, including fantasies of unlimited electrical power and methods of irrigating the plains, interests that were then displayed in the Oz books as different magical lands. Finally, you can also see him honing his talent for satire and humor, from broad-based visual pratfalls to punning wordplay, all things that would late prove useful in his career as a children's novelist. Baum failed as a newspaper publisher and editor in 1891, just as he had failed years earlier as a shop keeper. But these failures proved useful when he finally found his calling as an author of whimsical children's novels, as he turned his experiences on the frontier into settings and characters for his books. Today, Baum's books are constantly in print and remain in the hearts of children of all ages. Koupal's rescue of Baum's earlier work is a blessing for those people interested in the real Wizard of Oz.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Our Landlady" is an excellent book, perfect for Oz lovers.,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Our Landlady (Paperback)
"Our Landlady" is a book filled with the newspaper columns Baum wrote for his newspaper. They are stories about daily life and problems during the 1880s-1890s. Baum wrote thse before his Oz books, but they are just as good and just as funny. (For example, Mrs. Bilkins, the landlady, says when talking about a group of girls that fight in the army "They are all single, and are bound to stay that way until they get married.") I would strongly recommend reading "Our Landlady" if you like to read Oz and other books by L. Frank Baum. I'm sure you'll love this as much as the other books.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Historically fascinating,
By Glen Engel Cox - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Our Landlady (Hardcover)
L. Frank Baum is known best for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a children's fantasy that has achieved classic status through its multiple reprintings and because of the movies based on it, including the MGM classic The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland and the 70s musical The Wiz. Part of the appeal of Baum's fantasy is that it is quintessentially American, set in the heart of the midwest, and in some ways deals with the American spirit. Academic commentators have gone further in their study of Baum's work, saying that it can be read as a treatise on the America of the late 1800s, citing various political undercurrents in the novel. These arguments are based on Baum's work as a newspaper publisher, editor and columnist in South Dakota. Now the University of Nebraska press has made available a collection of the "Our Landlady" columns[1] written by Baum from January 1890 to February 1891--forty-eight installments about a fictitious boarding house in the town of Aberdeen where Baum's newspaper was published.The columns are edited and annotated by Nancy Tystad Koupal, who does an outstanding job of placing the column in the appropriate time setting, explaining to the modern reader the differences that one hundred years have made on newspapers, political parties, mercantile exchange, and other aspects of frontier life. This is especially important in the context of the "Our Landlady" columns which were intended as editorials on the doings of city hall and the state legislature. The column also mentions, by name, actual townspeople in Aberdeen, and these people are described by both Koupal's annotations and in a separate index of important people and places of South Dakota in 1890. For adult readers of Baum's children books, these columns are a rare insight into the mind of the author, dealing as they do with his strongest personal opinions. His advocacy of suffrage and the rights of women help explain the strong female characters in the Oz books (best seen in the strength of Glenda the Good's magic compared to the ineffectual humbuggery of the Wizard). One can also see his interest in the future, including fantasies of unlimited electrical power and methods of irrigating the plains, interests that were then displayed in the Oz books as different magical lands. Finally, you can also see him honing his talent for satire and humor, from broad-based visual pratfalls to punning wordplay, all things that would late prove useful in his career as a children's novelist. Baum failed as a newspaper publisher and editor in 1891, just as he had failed years earlier as a shop keeper. But these failures proved useful when he finally found his calling as an author of whimsical children's novels, as he turned his experiences on the frontier into settings and characters for his books. Today, Baum's books are constantly in print and remain in the hearts of children of all ages. Koupal's rescue of Baum's earlier work is a blessing for those people interested in the real Wizard of Oz. |
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