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The fictional Land of Oz is a magical country first introduced in American author L. Frank Baum's classic children's novel ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900). The US Library of Congress has considered it the best "home grown fairytale" and the original American fairyland. It is to the United States what Lewis Carroll's Wonderland and C.S. Lewis' Narnia are to the United Kingdom. Oz consists of four vast quadrants, the North, South, East and West, each of which has its own ruler, sometimes a witch or sorcerer. However, the realm itself has always been ruled by one official dominant monarch, who represents the entire country as a whole. Though Baum did not intend for his first Oz book to have any sequels, it achieved a greater popularity than any of the other fairylands he created, such as the land of Merryland in Baum's children's novel ''Dot and Tot in Merryland'', written only one year after ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.'' Due to Oz's worldwide success, Baum decided to return to it four years after his first Oz book was published. For the next two decades, he described and expanded upon the land in the Oz Books,〔James Thurber, "The Wizard of Chitenango", in ''Fantasists on Fantasy'', edited by Robert H. Boyer and Kenneth J. Zahorski, New York, Avon, 1984; pp. 64–5. ISBN 0-380-86553-X.〕 a series which introduced several fictional characters and creatures having adventures in a world where real magic exists, and marvelous things are possible. Baum's intention to end the series with the sixth Oz book ''The Emerald City of Oz'' (1910), in which Oz is forever sealed off and made invisible to the outside world, did not sit well with fans, and he quickly disregarded this attempt by writing more successful Oz books, even naming himself the "Royal Historian of Oz".〔Thurber, "The Wizard of Chitenango", p. 66.〕 In all, Baum wrote fourteen best selling children's books about Oz and its enchanted inhabitants, as well as a spin off series of six shorter books, intended for younger children who were still learning how to read. After his death in 1919, author Ruth Plumly Thompson, illustrator John R. Neill, (some of whom had previously collaborated with Baum in regards of his Oz books) and several other writers and artist continued the series, thus continuing the Oz legacy Baum left behind. There are over 50 novels based upon Baum's original Oz saga. Baum originally intended for Oz to be a real, existing place, unlike MGM's 1939 musical movie adaptation, which presents it as Dorothy Gale's unconscious dream. According to the Oz books, it is just a hidden and undiscovered place cut off from the rest of the world due to being completely surrounded on all four corners by a harsh desert (called the Deadly Desert) that will instantly turn any living thing that touches it to sand. This is what makes it nearly impossible for anyone to deliberately visit or leave the realm of Oz, thus keeping the continent safe from global discovery and unwanted invasion.〔L. Frank Baum, ''The Annotated Wizard of Oz'', edited by Michael Patrick Hearn, New York, Crown, 1976; p. 96. ISBN 0-517-50086-8.〕 The canonical demonym for Oz is "Ozite". The term appears in ''Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz'', ''The Road to Oz'', and ''The Emerald City of Oz''. Elsewhere in the canon, "Ozmie" is also used. In the animated 1974 semi-sequel to the MGM film, ''Journey Back to Oz'', "Ozonian" is used. The term "Ozian" appears in the script for the Royal Shakespeare Company's stage adaptation of the MGM movie and in the non-canonical modern work ''Wicked''. "Ozmite" was used in Reilly & Lee marketing in the 1920s, which has suggested to some critics that "Ozmie" may have been a typographical error. ==Characteristics== Oz is, in the first book ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'', distinguished from Dorothy's native Kansas by not being civilized; this explains why Kansas does not have witches and wizards, while Oz does.〔Michael O. Riley, ''Oz and Beyond: The Fantasy World of L. Frank Baum'', Lawrence, KS, University Press of Kansas, 1997; p. 53. ISBN 0-7006-0832-X.〕 In the third book, ''Ozma of Oz'', Oz is described as a "fairy country", new terminology that remained to explain its wonders.〔Riley, p. 138.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Land of Oz」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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