OZMA OF OZ; A Record of Her Adventures with Dorothy Gale of Kansas, the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Tiktok, the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger; Besides Other Good People too Numerous to Mention Faithfully Recorded Herein

Chicago, IL: The Reilly & Britton Co, 1907. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Good Only. John R. Neill. Tan boards with red, blue and yellow design featuring Ozma and Dorothy (cradling Billina the talking Hen in her left arm) all framed within a huge red letter "O" shot-through diagonally with a great, bright yellow "Z". No plates per se, but the book is loaded with color images -- 39 full page color illustrations, including the lovely frontispiece of Ozma.

NOTE: Curiously, p. 221 printed in black and white, but all other first printing points (Binding B) points present.

Binding B, with the letter "O" missing from Author's Note, p. 11, line 5, (as found in later copies of the first. printing) Reilly & Britton in upper and lower characters (Bienvenue). All illustrations present and accounted for. Six advertisements on concluding with John Dough and The Cherub (1906).

Fabulously wild colored front and rear endpapers depicting all characters of this adventure. (Bienvenue & Schmidt, p. 30) Shelf`wear and a bit of staining. Numerous upper page corners dog-eared. Small kid-pageturning tears to several pages -- bottom margin only of pp. 63 to 70, margin of illustration of Scarecrow to p. 113. Front hinge tender, but holding. Rear hinge showing, but all still solidly bound.

Previous owner's name/inscription (Mary Elizabeth Marshall, From Aunt Nancy Xmas 1912") in neat script along top of front free endpaper. Elizabeth Marshall's name also filled in on ownership page. Baum's Author's Note on p. 11 reads: "My friends the children are responsible for this new 'Oz Book'...Their sweet little letters plead to know more about Dorothy'; and they ask: 'What became of the Cowardly Lion....'...If...the little folks find this new story 'Real Ozzy', I shall be very glad indeed that I wrote it..."