Lyman Frank Baum was born in New York State in 1856. He was an actor, a shopkeeper, a newspaper editor and a salesman before he found his calling as a writer for children.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, illustrated by W. W. Denslow and published in 1900, was an instant success. Baum went on to write thirteen more books about Oz, and many others. He died in 1919, in his home in Hollywood, which he had named Ozcot.