The Oz books form a book series that begins with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) and relates the fictional history of the Land of Oz. Oz was created by author L. Frank Baum, who went on to write fourteen full-length Oz books. Baum styled himself as "the Royal Historian of Oz" in order to emphasize the concept that Oz is an actual place on Earth, full of magic. In his Oz books, Baum created the illusion that characters such as Dorothy and Princess Ozma relayed their adventures in Oz to Baum themselves, by means of a wireless telegraph.
After Baum's death in 1919, publisher Reilly & Lee continued to produce annual Oz books, passing on the role of Royal Historian. Ruth Plumly Thompson took up the task in 1921, and wrote nineteen Oz books. After Thompson, Reilly & Lee published seven more books in the series: three by John R. Neill, two by Jack Snow, one by Rachel Cosgrove Payes, and a final book by Eloise Jarvis McGraw and Lauren Lynn McGraw. The forty books in Reilly & Lee's Oz series are called "the Famous Forty" by fans, and are considered the canonical Oz texts.
