by L. Frank Baum
   "Royal Historian of Oz"

   To My Readers

    It's no use;
        no use at all.

    The children
        won't let me stop
               telling tales
                   of the Land of Oz.

    I know lots of
           other stories,
         and I hope
              to tell them,
         some time or another;
        but just
              now my loving tyrants
            won't allow me.

    They cry:
         "Oz
              --Oz!

    more about Oz,
           Mr. Baum!"

    and what can I do
         but obey their commands?

    This is Our Book
          --mine and the children's.

    For they
          have flooded me
               with thousands of suggestions in
              regard to it,
           and I
              have honestly tried
                  to adopt
                       as many
                           of these suggestions as
            could be
                  fitted into one story.

    After the wonderful success of
         "Ozma of Oz"
            it is evident
             that Dorothy has
                 become a firm fixture
                       in these Oz stories.

    The little ones
           all love Dorothy,
         and as
               one of
                   my small friends aptly states:
         "It isn't
               a real Oz story
             without her."

    So here she is again,
           as sweet
               and gentle and innocent
             as ever,
         I hope,
           and the heroine of
               another strange adventure.

    There were many requests
           from my little correspondents for
         "more about the Wizard."

    It seems
           the jolly old fellow made
         hosts of friends
               in the first Oz book,
           in spite of the fact
             that he frankly acknowledged himself
         "a humbug."

    The children had heard
         how he mounted
               into the sky
                   in a balloon and
             they were all
                 waiting for him
                  to come down again.

    So what could I do
         but tell
           "what happened
               to the Wizard afterward"?

    You will
          find him in these pages,
        just the same humbug
             Wizard as before.

    There was
           one thing the children
          demanded which
         I found it impossible
              to do
                   in this present book:
        they bade me introduce Toto,
           Dorothy's little black dog,
         who has many friends
               among my readers.

    But you will see,
           when you
              begin to read the story,
         that Toto was in Kansas
             while Dorothy was in California,
           and so
             she had
                  to start
                       on her adventure without him.

    In this book Dorothy
        had to take her kitten
               with her
              instead of her dog;
        but in the
               next Oz book,
           if I
            am permitted to write one,
         I intend
              to tell a good deal
                   about Toto's further history.

    Princess Ozma,
           whom I love
             as much
                   as my readers do,
         is again
              introduced in this story,
           and so
            are several
                of our old friends
                         of Oz.

    You will also become
         acquainted with Jim the Cab-Horse,
           the Nine Tiny Piglets,
         and Eureka,
           the Kitten.

    I am sorry the kitten
        was not as well
            behaved as
         she ought to have been;
        but perhaps
             she wasn't brought up properly.

    Dorothy found her,
           you see,
         and who her parents
            were nobody knows.

    I believe,
           my dears,
         that I
            am the proudest story-teller
             that ever lived.

    Many a time
           tears of pride and joy
          have stood in my eyes
         while I read the tender,
           loving,
         appealing letters
             that came to me
                   in almost every mail
                 from my little readers.

    To have pleased you,
           to have interested you,
         to have won your friendship,
           and perhaps your love,
         through my stories,
           is to my mind
               as great an achievement as
              to become President
                   of the United States.