(This is number 6 in a
series. Links to part 1 part 2 part 3
part 4 part 5 part 7
part 8 part 9 part 10)
Everything
is Related to Naples (6)
The Wonderful
Wizard of Chittenango
 L. (Lyman) Frank Baum
(1856-1919) was born in Chittenango, New York. He
became a prolific and popular author of over 50 books for children as
well as dozens of short stories and poems. (Belatedly, he has been
critically appreciated by the wogglebugs of academia.) He is
best remembered for the Oz
books, most notably The Wonderful
Wizard
of Oz, published in 1900, widely read and enjoyed, and then
recycled as
the well-known MGM film, The Wizard
of Oz, in 1939—a classic with an
unforgettable cast and brilliant music.
Baum wrote many other works for young readers. Many of these books he
wrote under various pen-names, including “Edith van Dyne,” the name he
used for his popular Aunt Jane’s
Nieces series. This series of ten
books was published between 1906 and 1918 and was meant to appeal to
the same audience as the popular Little
Women and Little Men
by Lousia
May Alcott from the previous century.
The AJN series was extremely
popular at the time, even outselling
Baum’s Oz books. The series
revolves around the travels and adventures
of three teenaged girls, Louise, Beth, and Patsy. In the second book of
the series, Aunt Jane’s Nieces Abroad
(1906), the girls travel to
Naples where they witness an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius:
Toward midnight the wind changed, driving the cloud
of ashes to the southward and sufficiently clearing the atmosphere to
allow the angry glow of the crater to be distinctly seen. Now it shot a
pillar of fire thousands of feet straight into the heavens; then it
would darken and roll skyward great clouds that were illumined by the
showers of sparks accompanying them…
…It was four o'clock on Sunday morning when Vesuvius finally reached
the climax of her travail. With a deep groan of anguish the mountain
burst asunder, and from its side rolled a great stream of molten lava
that slowly spread down the slope, consuming trees, vineyards and
dwellings in its path and overwhelming the fated city of Bosco-Trecase.
Our friends marked the course of destruction by watching the thread of
fire slowly wander down the mountain slope. They did not know of the
desolation it was causing, but the sight was terrible enough to inspire
awe in every breast...
And so forth for quite a number of pages. Interestingly, it is an
accurate description of the highly destructive eruption of Mt. Vesuvius
in April, 1906. Baum did not have to resort at all to his fertile
imagination since he was actually present during the event! He and his
wife, Maud Gage-Baum, had embarked on a six-month trip mainly in Italy,
Egypt, Switzerland and France, and they were in Naples during the
eruption. Mrs. Baum wrote up the trip in a series of
letters written from abroad for family and
friends back home. In 1907 her husband
published the letters privately as a book: In Other Lands
Than Ours. He wrote a short introduction and illustrated it with
his
own photography, including one shot entitled “On the smoking hot lava
of Bosco Trecase,” the very same town “overwhelmed” in his adventures
of Louise, Beth, and Patsy. L. Frank had simply used his wife’s very
real travel diary as source material for his own story. He says in his
introduction to her book:
Her observation of details is to me remarkable, and her artistic
instinct rings positive and true. No bit of natural beauty escaped her
eager eyes, and much that I myself had forgotten or overlooked comes
back to me as I read her letters.
Others have perhaps written of these things and places in a more
scholarly way, but her vivid descriptions of what her own eyes beheld
will, I am sure, be treasured by those near and dear friends who love
her and rejoice that she had such opportunity to witness these old
world scenes, which so evidently delighted her generous and
appreciative heart.
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