120 Years of Oz!

120 years ago, on this day in Oz history, May 17, 1900 - L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with more than 100 colored illustrations & 24 color plates by W.W. Denslow, is published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago, Illinois. In January 1901, George M. Hill completed printing the first edition, a total of 10,000 copies, which quickly sold out. It sold three million copies by the time it entered the public domain in 1956. It has since seen several reprints, most often under the title The Wizard of Oz, which is the title of the popular 1902 Broadway musical adaptation as well as the iconic 1939 MGM musical. The Library of Congress has declared it "America's greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale."

50 years ago, on this day in Oz history, May 17, 1970 - During the David Weisz auction for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, a pair of ruby red slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz (1939), hammers on the auction block for $15,000. Thanks to costumer Kent Warner, the remaining pairs of slippers were saved and preserved. This particular pair now resides at the National Museum of American History. To learn more about the most iconic footwear of all Hollywood memorabilia, check out The Ruby Slippers of Oz: Thirty Years Later by Rhys Thomas. #RubySlippers #WizardofOz #KeepThemRuby

25 years ago, #OTD in Oz history, May 1995 - ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins, releases an advance excerpt (containing alternate chapter art) announcing the upcoming October 1995 publication of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. #GregoryMaguire #Elphaba #WickedWitchOfTheWest #WICKED