The Book
In 1906 Baum wrote, and his publisher Reilly & Britton published, a set of six tales for young children, called The Twinkle Tales after their little-girl protagonist. The six were issued in separate chapbooks, but later collected into a volume titled Twinkle and Chubbins: Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland. The series was a hit; Reilly & Britton sold 40,000 copies of the little books in a short time. Such commercial success justified a sequel: Baum took his Policeman Bluejay character from the Twinkle Tale "Bandit Jim Crow" and cast him in a separate novel, to be issued the following year.
Baum published many works — adventure stories, melodramas, and juvenile novels — under pseudonyms; early experience had taught him that he ended up "competing with himself" if he released too much material under his own name. Both The Twinkle Tales and Policeman Bluejay were printed under the pen name "Laura Bancroft" — the only Baum fantasy works published under a pseudonym. Tongue-in-cheek, Katharine Rogers has called Policeman Bluejay "her best work...." Oz author and "Royal Historian" Jack Snow thought Policeman Bluejay Baum's finest fantasy apart from the Oz books.
Policeman Bluejay was another success for Baum and his publishers; a second edition appeared in 1911 under the alternative title Babes in Birdland. The third edition of 1917, also under the new title, dropped the pseudonym and acknowledged Baum's authorship. The book was issued in a facsimile edition in 1981, and was printed again in the second issue of the annual Oz-story Magazine in 1996. A volume that combined all the "Bancroft" material appeared in 2005.
Read more about this topic: Policeman Bluejay
Famous quotes containing the word book:
“When our kids are young, many of us rush out to buy a cute little baby book to record the meaningful events of our young child’s life...But I’ve often thought there should be a second book, one with room to record the moral milestones of our child’s lives. There might be space to record dates she first shared or showed compassion or befriended a new student or thought of sending Grandma a get-well card or told the truth despite its cost.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)
“His eye had become minutely exact as to the book and its position. Then he resolved that he would not look at the book again, would not turn a glance on it unless it might be when he had made up his mind to reveal its contents.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)