Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The
West Hatfield, Massachusetts: Printed by Harold McGrath at The Pennyroyal Press, 1985. Item #06937
Barry Moser’s Remarkable Wonderful Wizard of Oz
One of the Great Pennyroyal Press Books — Limited to 350 Copies, Signed by Moser
[MOSER, Barry, illustrator]. [PENNYROYAL PRESS]. BAUM, L. Frank. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Illustrated by Barry Moser. With an Appreciation by Justin G. Schiller. West Hatfield, Massachusetts: Printed by Harold McGrath at The Pennyroyal Press, 1985.
One of 350 numbered copies, this being No. 153, signed by Barry Moser.
Large quarto (12 7/8 x 11 7/8 inches; 327 x 302 mm.). [6, blank], [5], [1, blank], [1], [1, blank], [1], [1, blank], [3], [1, blank], [1-7], 8-268, [1], [1, blank], [1, colophon], [1, blank], [8, blank] pp. Illustrated with sixty-two wood engravings by Barry Moser. Printed in five colors by Harold P. McGrath on Mohawk Letterpress paper, in Van Dijck type. The hand composition was executed at the Press by P. Chase Twitchell, with calligraphy by Yvette Rutledge of Hayward, California.
Bound by David Bourbeau at the Thistle Bindery in Barcham Green Dewint paper over boards, the front cover embossed with the title design and lettered in gilt, the rear cover similarly embossed and lettered in blind; beige cloth endpapers. A mint copy. Housed in the original beige cloth clamshell case, the lower corners slightly bumped. A very fine copy in a near fine clamshell case.
Moser's Wonderful Wizard of Oz is among the most imaginative productions of the Pennyroyal Press. Rather than attempting to imitate W.W. Denslow's celebrated illustrations for the 1900 first edition, Moser created an entirely new visual interpretation of Baum's story through sixty-two finely worked wood engravings, combining traditional book illustration with distinctly contemporary imagery and satirical allusion.
Moser deliberately populated Oz with visual references to twentieth-century American life and politics. As he later explained: “Few texts lend themselves to contemporary parody as well as does the Wizard of Oz.”
Having previously portrayed Richard Nixon as Humpty Dumpty in his Through the Looking-Glass, Moser found in Baum's story an even broader opportunity for political and cultural satire, directing what he described as “humorous, but none-the-less serious darts” at the Reagan administration, corporate America, and the Moral Majority. Among the most celebrated examples is his transformation of the Wicked Witch into Nancy Reagan.
The photographs vividly demonstrate the range of Moser's conception: the familiar inhabitants of Oz are transformed into startlingly individual characters, while other illustrations introduce consciously modern elements into Baum's fantastic landscape. The resulting book is not simply an illustrated edition of Baum, but a distinctly 1980s reinterpretation of an American classic.
Laid in is the separately published companion pamphlet: Barry Moser, Forty-Seven Days to Oz: A Chronicle of the Studies for the Illustrations for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. [West Hatfield]: Pennyroyal Press, 1985. First edition. Octavo (9 x 6 inches; 229 x 153 mm.). 32 pp.
The pamphlet provides Moser's own day-by-day account of the creation of the sixty-two illustrations. As he explains in his Author's Note, the text was taken directly from the day book in which he recorded the progress of his work, making it an especially appropriate accompaniment to the finished volume.
The completed book is an impressive example of the modern American private press at its most ambitious: Baum's great American fantasy interpreted by one of the foremost American book illustrators and wood engravers of the late twentieth century, conceived, illustrated, printed, and bound as a unified work of book art.
Dwyer, Pennyroyal, 43.
Price: $2,500.00