Audiobook · read by volunteers
Lost Princess of Oz
L. Frank Baum (1856–1919)
Read by Mark F. Smith · 27 chapters · 5 h 22
About the book
Something is badly wrong in Oz. The magic of Glinda the Good has been stolen, the Wizard's tools have vanished, and the beloved ruler, Princess Ozma, has been kidnapped and no one can find her. Dorothy and her friends set out to search every corner of the country, and the journey takes them into regions that appear in no other Oz book, where they meet strange and interesting people and animals. Along the way the cast includes a Frogman, a Yoop giant and other unlikely figures, and the mystery of who is stealing the magic keeps deepening. L. Frank Baum builds a lively adventure with his usual mix of humour and invention. Mark F. Smith reads the twenty-seven chapters in about five and a half hours, a fine choice for fans of the series and for new listeners alike.
Introduction
The Lost Princess of Oz was published in 1917. L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) was by this time fully at ease in his invented world and could build a story that explores entirely new regions of it.
The plot is a detective story in a fairy-tale setting. Someone is stealing magic, and the heroes follow clues across the map, each chapter revealing a new group of inhabitants with their own laws and customs. The book keeps Baum's trademark mixture of comic characters and genuine suspense, and it includes some of his most inventive creatures. As in other volumes, there are small digressions that show his pleasure in absurdity.
The audio edition has 27 chapters, beginning with the dedication, and runs for about 5.4 hours. The reader is Mark F. Smith, a LibriVox volunteer.
Why listen now? The book gives a good idea of how the Oz series evolved after the first volume and shows that Baum's imagination remained active late in his life. It also works as a cheerful family audiobook, with short chapters and a clear plot that rewards attention. You do not need to have read earlier books to follow the story. Because Baum sets the story in parts of Oz that readers have never seen, the book feels like an exploration, and each chapter introduces a new community with its own habits. This makes the story easy to listen to in short sections, and the central mystery keeps the suspense alive from the first chapter to the last.
Public domain
L. Frank Baum died in 1919: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text