It is nearly seventy-five years since the 1939 MGM film The Wizard of Oz was released to much acclaim. As a movie it entered the psyche and zeitgeist of many generations. The film’s success had the unfortunate effect of imposing its version to the detriment of the wider body of work from which it drew its inspiration.

A Brief Guide to Oz: 75 Years Going Over the Rainbow (288 pages, including index) is a retrospective look, not just of the MGM film, although this does cover a lot of the colour plates. The book is written by Paul Simpson and split into four sections; Oz and its Creators, Oz on the Screen, Oz on Stage and Reimagined.

Simpson has taken a traditional approach to chronicling the ups and downs of the series in various media, starting with a first chapter which illuminates L. Frank Baum’s life prior to the first book's publication.

Oddly enough although Baum is primarily associated with the creation of Oz, of which he was the originator, out of the forty books written about the land, Baum was not the most prodigious single writer. That honour fell to Ruth Plumly Thompson, which is the focus of the forth chapter. The chapters which follow look at those books attributed to not only these two primary authors, but other authors who have added to the canon and non-canon body of work.

Section two examines the various screen adaptations for both cinema and television. Because of its impact and importance MGM’s version gets a fair representation, but I think that most readers will be surprised just how many times these characters have appeared over the years.

Section three pretty much does the same for the theatre, with a chapter looking at Wicked which has been continuously produced since 2003. The last section looks at the way the story, characters and ideas have been used in ways not imagined by their original creator.

Unless you’re knowledge of Oz is already extensive, there is much here that will be new and illuminating. Given the length of the book, much of the information is more concise than in other more specialist tomes, but as the book sets out to present a brief overview of a large subject it succeeds.

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Charles Packer