In 1900 children’s book author L. Frank Baum wrote his masterpiece, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Chronicling the adventures of Dorothy Gale, a young girl who is transported from her home in Kansas to the magical Land of Oz, the book has been cemented on lists of great children’s literature. Since its creation the story and its characters have been adapted to various mediums in several productions.

Two years after the George M. Hill Company published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz it was performed as a musical on Broadway by the well known shortened title The Wizard of Oz. Then in 1939 the most famous version of Baum’s creation came to the silver screen starring Judy Garland as Dorothy. Though the film was not an immediate box office hit, it was nominated for six Academy Awards, and achieved more success following subsequent rereleases.

From 1904 to 1920 Baum wrote a collection of sequels all set in Oz. Others expanded on Baum’s fictitious world, including a Russian translation of five books called The Wizard of the Emerald City series. In 1967 The Seekers, an Australian band, recorded an album called Emerald City, with lyrics centered on a visit there. The first comic adaptation, MGM’s Marvelous Wizard of Oz, was published by Marvel in 1975, with a story adapted by Roy Thomas and art by John Buscema and Tony DeZuniga.

In 1982 A Barnstormer in Oz was published by Philip José Farmer centered around Dorothy’s son. Author Geoff Ryman wrote the novel Was in 1992 weaving three stories, one loosely based on Judy Garland’s childhood. Gregory Maguire published Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West in 1995. His revisionist version of the events in Oz were focused on Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. Eight years later his reimagining of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was adapted as a musical on Broadway starring the dynamic stage actresses Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth.

Image published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz graphic novel adaptation by David Chauvel and Enrique Fernández in 2006. A year later, the SyFy channel co-produced Tin Man, a miniseries that was a continuation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz leaning heavily on science fiction elements in its storytelling. Marvel published an eight-issue miniseries in 2009, written by Eric Shanower and featuring Skottie Young’s whimsical illustrations. Then in 2013 James Franco starred in Oz the Great and Powerful telling a story of the magician who gets swept away to Oz where he meets three exceptional witches.

Maguire’s Wicked was recently adapted for the screen, starring Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda. The story was split into two feature-length films that were released in 2024 and 2025.