The Emerald City of Oz

The Emerald City of Oz, published in 1910 by L. Frank Baum, is the sixth book in his Oz series. Baum had intended it to be the last Oz story, but financial pressures led him to write The Patchwork Girl of Oz three years later, followed by seven more volumes. It is also the first book in the series to use two interwoven plots.

The story opens with Dorothy Gale telling her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry about her adventures in Oz. Neither believes her, though they regard her as a dreamer, as her late mother was. It later emerges that the cyclone that destroyed the family farmhouse in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has left Uncle Henry deep in debt, and his creditors threaten to take the farm. Dorothy persuades Princess Ozma to bring the whole family to Oz, where they can live comfortably and safely.

Meanwhile, the Nome King Roquat plans to invade Oz and recover the Magic Belt that Dorothy took from him in Ozma of Oz. His general Guph gathers allies from other parts of Nonestica, while the people of Oz follow these moves through Ozma's Magic Picture. The invasion is foiled when a magic dust blocks the tunnel dug beneath the Deadly Desert, and the invaders drink from the Fountain of Oblivion, which erases their evil intentions. Glinda then renders Oz invisible to outsiders to prevent future attacks.

The book has drawn attention for its utopian dimension: its social organization, described in more detail than in earlier volumes, has been compared with literary utopias such as those of Bellamy and Morris. Scholars have also noted resemblances to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland and a possible influence from the activist Matilda Joslyn Gage, Baum's mother-in-law. Its elegiac tone has also been highlighted. The Forbidden Fountain introduced here recurs in later books of the series.