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  • John Dough and the Cherub *
  • Martin Gardner (bio)

After Lyman Frank Baum's fantastic success in 1900 with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and his equally astonishing success two years later with the stage musical based on the book, Baum was at the height of his fame and creative energy. His second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz, in many ways even better than its predecessor, was published in 1904 by Reilly and Britton, a small Chicago house that would publish all of Baum's Oz books and almost all of his juveniles not about Oz. Queen Zixi of Ix, which some critics consider the best of non-Oz fantasies, was serialized in St. Nicholas and published as a book in 1905.

Edward William Bok (later famous for his autobiography, The Americanization of Edward Bok) was then editor-in-chief of The Ladies' Home Journal. We know from a 1912 letter of Baum to his publisher, Frank Reilly, that sometime before 1906 Bok met with Baum and offered him $2, 500 for serial rights to a new fantasy.1 Baum responded with an early draft of John Dough in which Chick the Cherub did not appear. Bok returned the manuscript, asking Baum to add a human child to the tale.

"I had either a grouch or the big-head," Baum said in his letter to Reilly, "and refused to alter the text." But after some second thoughts he decided that Bok was right. He rewrote the story, introducing a child with whom young readers could identify, and gave the manuscript to Reilly. The book's working title was John Dough, the Baker's Man. John Rea Neill, who had illustrated the second Oz book (and would illustrate all subsequent Oz books by Baum and his successor, Ruth Plumly Thompson, as well as three Oz books of his own), did the pictures for John Dough.

In a copy of the first edition of John Dough and the Cherub, published by Reilly and Britton in 1906,2 Baum wrote the following inscription to his son, Robert: "Too bad this wasn't an Oz book, but I like the story just as well. This was the first creation of a gingerbread man and John Dough was original with this story."

Why did Baum underline "first creation" ? Dick Martin, in his article cited in the footnote, gives the reason. The words imply that he invented John Dough before the production in New York in 1906, the very year Baum's book was published, of a musical comedy called The Gingerbread Man. The play and lyrics were by Frederick Ranken, the music by A. Baldwin Sloane. "It, too," writes Martin, "involved a gingerbread man magically brought to life, and (to twist the [End Page 110] arm of coincidence a little further) he was also named John Dough. Here the parallel ends—the plot and characters of the Ranken-Sloane musical are quite different from those of Baum's book. On the other hand, the 1902 musical comedy of The Wizard of Oz bore little resemblence to Baum's original book—so perhaps there is a connection—and a mystery yet to be solved."

John Dough and the Cherub is not, in my opinion, among Baum's best fantasies, but that doesn't mean it is not worth reading. It is typical Baum, funny and exciting, packed with Ozzy characters and episodes, and with outrageous surprises on almost every page. The book has its spots of humdrum writing, and some of its ideas are hackneyed, but it is hard to imagine a young reader, even today, who would be bored by the tale.

For readers unfamiliar with John Dough, a capsule summary of the plot may be helpful. A baker, making a large gingerbread man to celebrate the Fourth of July, accidentally mixes an Arabian Elixir of Life into the dough. John Dough comes alive, walks out of the bakery, and is carried by a skyrocket to the Isle of Phreex. Chick the Cherub, one of the island's "freaks," helps him escape (from a pursuing Arab who wants to eat him to acquire the elixir's power) in an airship with flapping wings.

After...

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