Audiobook · read by volunteers
Master Key
L. Frank Baum (1856–1919)
Read by Judy Bieber · 20 chapters · 3 h 40
About the book
Rob Joslyn is a boy who likes tinkering with electricity. One evening, in his workshop, an experiment goes strangely right, and he summons the Demon of Electricity, who is prepared to grant him a gift every week for three weeks. Rob chooses with the enthusiasm of youth, and receives marvellous things: gadgets that could change the world.
With his new equipment, Rob sets out to travel across the globe. He meets kings and soldiers, wanders into distant lands, and discovers that powerful tools do not always bring the results one expects. Wit and wonder alternate in a story that treats invention as both a gift and a responsibility.
L. Frank Baum wrote this tale in the first years of the twentieth century, a time when electricity was changing everyday life. It is a lively adventure full of gadgets and comic encounters. In twenty chapters, about three and three-quarter hours, this recording is a good choice for young listeners and for anyone who enjoys early science fantasy.
Introduction
L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) is remembered as the creator of the Oz books, beginning with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900. The Master Key: An Electrical Fairy Tale was among his earliest full-length fantasies for children and came out in 1901, only a year after Oz. It shows an author who was eager to explore new settings and ideas beyond that first success.
The subtitle, An Electrical Fairy Tale, tells us what the book is about. Electricity was a new and exciting force at the turn of the twentieth century, powering lights, trams and telegraphs, and Baum was drawn to it as a source of modern wonder. His story brings together a young inventor, a magical being and a set of imagined devices, and uses them to take the hero on a world tour. The tone is cheerful and episodic, with humour and a little moralising about how technology should be used. Readers should know that, like many adventure stories of its day, it includes some stereotyped portrayals of the foreign peoples Rob meets.
Baum’s other writing for children is the natural point of comparison. Like the Oz stories, The Master Key favours quick adventures, clear characters and inventive details, and it avoids the grimmer elements found in older fairy tales. It is less well known than the Oz series but offers a fascinating glimpse of early science fiction for the young.
This recording is divided into twenty chapters and runs for about three and a half hours, read by a LibriVox volunteer. It suits children who like gadgets and journeys, and curious adults will enjoy seeing how an author of the period imagined a technological future.
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