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.”