Search Worlds Without End

In which the Scarecrow goes to search for his family roots and discovers that he is the Long Lost Emperor of the Silver Island -- and how he was rescued and brought back to Oz by Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion.

Really! In another life, the Scarecrow was the Long Lost Emperor of the Silver Island. . . . Maybe he was. Who knows? Maybe not. Remember, this is the first book that's not entirely the work of L. Frank Baum. How much of it is his? Nobody can say for certain. But in retrospect, this is the first Oz book that actually shows us death, albeit of a peculiar sort: before the Scarecrow was reincarnated as the fluff-headed fellow we all know and love, he was the Emperor of Silver Island. Which was underground. -- Exactly beneath that cornfield where Dorothy first found him. But there are pictures of the place, and the pictures don't look dark enough to be set in a kingdom made of caves. . . . Hrrrm.

During Prince Pompadore of Pumperdink's eighteenth birthday celebration, his birthday cake explodes, revealing a magic scroll, a magic mirror, and a doorknob. The scroll warns the prince that if the he doesn't wed a "proper princess" within seven days, his entire kingdom will disappear. The prince, along with the kingdom's wise elephant Kabumpo, set off on an adventure to the Emerald City so Pompa can marry Princess Ozma, the only "proper princess" the Elegant Elephant can think of as worthy of his prince.

The Cowardly Lion is kidnapped by Mustafa of Mudge for Mustafa's large menagerie of lions. With the help of American circus clown Notta Bit More and orphan Bobbie Downs, or Bob Up, he is rescued from Mustafa as well as from petrifaction caused by the stone giant Crunch.

Things are going from bad to worse in the dilapidated kingdom of Ragbad; even the rag crop is failing. To top it all off (or not), King Fumbo's head is blown away in a ferocious storm (with "ten thousand pounds of thunder"). Prince Tatters of Ragbad, and Grampa, a former soldier and the bravest man in the kingdom (population 27), set out on a three-fold quest: for King Fumbo's lost head, a fortune to save the bankrupt kingdom, and a princess for Tatters to marry. They are joined by Bill, an iron weathercock from Chicago, who was brought to life by an electrical storm and blown to Oz.

Meanwhile, in Perhaps City in the Maybe Mountains, the Princess Pretty Good has a problem: the prophet Abrog (also known as Gorba) foresees her marrying a monster if she does not marry in four days. (He suggests himself as her bridegroom.) When Pretty Good resists, Abrog kidnaps her and tries to transform her into a clod of earth; but since she is, in fact, more than just pretty good, as princesses go, Pretty Good turns into the beautiful flower fairy Urtha.

Wide-ranging adventures-from Fire Island to Isa Poso to Monday Mountain - culminate in the location and restoration of King Fumbo's head. Dorothy (with the help of Percy Vere the forgetful poet) manages to restore order. Prince Tatters ends up married to Princess Pretty Good - which is pretty good for him.

Old Mombi, formerly the Wicked Witch of the North, is now a cook in the land of Kimbaloo. One day she comes across Pajuka, the former prime minister of Oz, transformed by Mombi into a goose years before. She sets out to find Pastoria, the king of Oz, whom she also enchanted in the past. However, she has forgotten what shape she transformed Pastoria into. She kidnaps a local boy called Snip as her unwilling assistant and bearer of burdens. Eventually deciding, however, that he knows too much, Mombi throws Snip down a well; he ends up in Blankenburg, populated by the invisible Blanks. Snip meets and soon rescues Tora, an amnesiac old tailor. Tora has been held prisoner for many years by the Blanks, to do their tailoring; he has compensated by sending his detachable ears flying about the countryside to hear the news.

Meanwhile, Dorothy is accidentally transported to Hollywood, where she meets Humpy, a live stunt dummy, whom she brings back to Oz. They escape the Back Talkers in Eht Kcab Sdoow (by running backwards), and meet the Scooters who help scoot them on their way. Kabumpo the Elegant Elephant shows up to provide transport (of the mandane sort). Dorothy's party encounters Snip and Tora, and Mombi and Pajuka too. They come to the conclusion that Humpy the dummy is the enchanted Pastoria.

Eventually, matters are clarified and settled: Pajuka is restored to humanity, but Humpy proves not to be the missing king after all. Old Tora is disenchanted and turns out to be Pastoria. He spurns any notion of returning to his throne, however; he is content to settle down as a humble tailor in the Emerald City, with Snip as his apprentice and Humpy as his tailor's dummy.

In a rare act of Ozite capital punishment, Mombi is ruthlessly doused with water and melts away like the Wicked Witch of the West, so that nothing is left of her but her buckled shoes.

Thompson begins with a usurping tyrant, Irasha the Rough, the Pasha of Rash, a tiny kingdom in the southwest of Ev. The Pasha has a problem: his prison is too full to cram any more Rashers in. His Vizier's solution is to obtain a ferocious animal from nearby Oz to devour the luckless prisoners. Travelling to the Emerald City by his magical "hurry cane", the Vizier lures the Hungry Tiger (first seen in Ozma of Oz) to Rash. As might be expected from his history, however, the Hungry Tiger is too tenderhearted to eat prisoners.

Meanwhile, through an unfortunate series of events involving a winding road and a pair of Quick Sandals, Betsy Bobbin (introduced in Tik-Tok of Oz) and her new acquaintance, Carter Green, the Vegetable Man, end up in Rash, and no sooner do they arrive than they're thrown into the crowded prison. There they meet the Scarlet Prince Evered (known as Reddy), the rightful ruler of Rash. Together with the Tiger, they escape, and have varied adventures with Big Wigs and Gnomes in their search for three magic rubies.

Back in Oz, Princess Ozma has troubles of her own: she is confronted by Atmos Fere, a balloon-like being who lives in the upper stratosphere. His plan is to kidnap her up to his own kingdom, to prove to his skeptical fellows that living beings can actually exist on the surface of the Earth. Ozma, however, has a secret weapon (actually, a pin).

In time, the adventurers recover the magic rubies, and Reddy is restored to the Rashian throne. The Pasha and his evil Vizier end up stranded on a desert island in the Nonestic Ocean.

Patch is the country of the Quilties, a land of seamtresses and quiltmakers; it lies in the Quadling quadrant of Oz. Its people have a serious problem. Their queen, Cross Patch the Sixth, has gone to pieces--literally; small pieces too. To find her successor, the land's Chief Scrapper and Prime Piercer unwind the Spool of Succession, and follow where the golden thread leads. It leads, in this instance, to the Emerald City, where it selects Scraps, the Patchwork Girl of Oz, to be the new queen. The two Quilties, used to resistance from Queens-to-be (it's not that good a job), kidnap Scraps.

Meanwhile, Peter Brown, a boy from Philadelphia, is transported by a balloon bird to the Runaway Island, where the Ruggedo, the wicked Gnome King has been exiled for five years (see Kabumpo in Oz). A seaquake reveals the sunken pirate ship of Polacky the Plunderer--which contains the magic chest of Soob the Sorcerer. The chest holds several magic treasures, including a magic cloak that is supposed to render the wearer invisible and teleport him anywhere he chooses. But the cloak is torn and does not work. The ship, however, derelict as it is, allows Peter and Ruggedo to drift to the Land of Ev.

Promising to make Peter a general in his army, Ruggedo returns to the Gnome Kingdom and forces the current king, Kaliko, to abdicate in his favor. Ruggedo's plan is to have the cloak mended, then use it to fly to the Emerald City and recover his magic belt, with all its power -- but he learns that the tricky repair job can only be done properly by the expert tailors in Patch. With Peter, he makes his way to Patch, where he offers Peter as a slave in return for the repair of the cloak. The Patch ministers accept this offer and the cloak is repaired.

Peter meets Scraps and makes other new friends, including Grumpy the Bear and Ozwold the Ostrich. Together they escape from Patch and set out for the Emerald City in order to warn Ozma about Ruggedo's plans. Meanwhile, using the power of the repaired cloak, Ruggedo becomes invisible and teleports to the Emerald City, where he causes some mischief before Peter arrives. Still invisible, Ruggedo steals the magic belt. He is about to use its powers to teleport Ozma and her friends to the bottom of the ocean, but Peter overcomes him by throwing a "silence stone", one of the treasures he had taken from the sunken pirate ship, at Ruggedo's head, which robs Ruggedo of the power of speech. Since the magic belt only responds to spoken commands, this renders Ruggedo harmless, and the Wizard of Oz makes him visible again. Ozma makes Peter a Prince of Oz, but the boy chooses to return to Philadelphia; he can't let down his team.

The tiny kingdom of the Ozure Isles, perched on five islands in Lake Orizon, surrounded by high mountains in a remote region of Munchkin Land, has little contact with the outside world--of Oz. The evil witch Mombi has turned her malice in the Ozure direction. After kidnapping Queen Orin, Mombi has left a fire-breathing lake monster named Quiberon in Lake Orizon to keep the natives prisoner. Even after Mombi was vanquished, Quiberon remains.

Conditions grow worse when the Quiberon orders the Ozurites to kidnap a mortal maiden to keep him company. Since Oz is a fairyland, the only mortal maidens are three American girls living in the Emerald City: Dorothy Gale, Betsy Bobbin, and Tiny Trot. Two Ozurites respond to the crisis in two separate ways. The heroic Prince Philador escapes from the islands to seek the aid of the Good Witch of the North, whose name is Tattypoo. The unheroic Akbad, the Ozure Isles soothsayer, steals a pair of magic wings, flies to the Emerald City, and kidnaps Trot. He also accidentally kidnaps the Scarecrow and an animated statue called Benny (short for "public benefactor") along with Trot.

In his search for Tattypoo, Prince Philador teams up with High Boy, a giant horse with telescoping legs, Herby the Medicine Man, an eighteenth-century doctor with a medicine chest in his own chest due to an incomplete disenchantment, and Jo King, a monarch with a sense of humor. Various adventures ensue, in strange locations like Cave City, and with even stranger beings like the Roundabouties and Shutterfaces. Eventually, matters are sorted out satisfactorily: the Wizard turns Quiberon into a great bronze and silver statue, and the good Witch Tattypoo is revealed to be the missing and amnesiac Queen Orin. She is restored to her family and kingdom. Trot becomes a princess of the Ozure Isles, welcome in their Sapphire City whenever she chooses to visit. By Ozma's decree, Jo King is made ruler of the entire Gillikin Country of Oz.

A rainy day in Philadelphia means no baseball; Peter Brown, the child protagonist introduced by Thompson in The Gnome King of Oz, mopes in his attic. He finds the sacks that were full of gold when he brought them back from his previous Oz adventure; and one of those sacks contains an odd gold coin. Toying with the coin and thinking of Oz, he wishes himself back in the magic land -- and suddenly finds himself there, in the front yard of Jack Pumpkinhead.

The sensible thing for Peter to do is to head for the Emerald City; and Jack is ready to act as his guide. They lose their way in the Quadling Country, where they blunder into Chimneyville and Scare City. By chance, Peter finds that his empty sack will fly from his hand and consume objects and creatures that are scooped into its open mouth, protecting him from danger. The two also find the magic dinner bell of Jinnicky the Red Jinn, which supplies Peter with needed provisions.

The travelers adopt a third member for their party when they meet the doggerel-spouting Snif the Iffin (he's a griffin who has lost his "gr-" and is no longer able to growl). The three then encounter the unfortunate Baron Belfaygor of Bourne. He has been accidentally cursed with a rapidly growing beard that he must constantly cut away. Even worse, his fiancée, the princess Shirley Sunshine, has been kidnapped by the local villain, Mogodore the Mighty, the Baron of Baffleburg.

Peter, Belfaygor, Snif, and Jack set out to rescue her, and are quickly taken prisoner in Baffleburg. While escaping, they acquire a Forbidden Flagon and a talkative and abusive Sauce Box. When Mogodore sets out to conquer Oz and actually succeeds in seizing the Emerald City, the travelers have to mount a desperate rescue effort. Eventually Jack, with help from the Red Jinn (here introduced for the first time; his name, Jinnicky, is not revealed until later books), manages to save the day: using the Forbidden Flagon, he reduces Mogodore and his thousand warriors to little beings "no bigger than brownies."

The miniaturized aggressors are confined to their homeland, also miniaturized. Snif the Iffin recovers his lost "gr-." Order in Oz is restored, with a great celebratory banquet before Peter is sent home, with thanks, once again.

Sir Hokus of Pokes grows bored with life in the Emerald City, and he and the Comfortable Camel set out for some adventure. Sir Hokes wants to rescue a damsel in distress, or at least find a monster to fight. Sir Hokus visits Marshland and befriends Ploppa, a giant mud turtle. Ploppa would like to accompany Sir Hokus on his adventures, but cannot leave the swamp. Sir Hokus is joined by the Comfortable Camel.

Meanwhile a boy named Speedy blasts his way to Oz in a homemade rocket ship, where he finds himself in the underground kingdom of Subterranea. At his touch, a golden statue of a beautiful girl comes to life. She is called Marygolden, and she accompanies Speedy on his further adventures. Sir Hokes and Speedy join forces and, using the power of a bag of magic dates, they counter the magic of the evil Sultan of Samandra and restore the Corumbian Kingdom, which the Sultan had conquored and enchanted. Sir Hokus learns his true identity: he is actually the young and handsome Yellow Knight of Corumbia, transformed into old, absent-minded Sir Hokus by the Sultan's magic. Using the power of the magic dates, Sir Hokus regains his youthful form and vacates the Emerald City to rule as Prince of Corumbia.

Peter returns for a third time, washing up on the Octagon Isle after a shipwreck. He joins King Ato, who has been abandoned by his subjects, and Captain Samuel Salt, who has been abandoned by his crew of pirates. Together, they sail on the Nonestic Ocean (which surrounds the landmass of Oz and its neighbor countries).

Meanwhile, Ruggedo, the deposed Gnome King, is back. He had been cursed with loss of speech by a magical "Silence Stone" at the end of his previous appearance in The Gnome King of Oz, and is scraping out a living as a peddler and beggar. He decides to answer an advertisement for the position of King of the Land of Menankypoo, whose people are also mute. These people demand "a dumb king" and Ruggedo meets this requirement. While serving as king, he recovers his ability to speak, joins forces with an ambitious magician, and also becomes leader of Captain Salt's mutinous pirates and Ato's rebellious subjects. He trains these followers into a military force, and attempts once again to conquer Oz.

While visiting the neighboring kingdom of Pumperdink, Prince Randy of the Purple Mountains criticizes the king's grapes, claiming they are sour. Randy is sentenced to be "dipped", but Kabumpo, the Elegant Elephant, makes him his attendant instead. Later, the royal family disappears and Randy and Kabumpo must save the day with the help of the Red Jinn.

Ojo (from The Patchwork Girl of Oz) is captured by Gypsies and escapes with fellow captive Snufferbux (whose full name is Snuffurious, Buxorious, Blundurious Boroso), a dancing bear. The pair meet up with Realbad, the leader of a group of bandits, who caries a secret that is connected to the Munchkin boy and his habitually closemouthed guardian Unc Nunkie. Together they discover X-Pando, the flexible man, and free the frozen Crystal City from the Blue Dragon. Dorothy, Scraps, and the Cowardly Lion set out looking for them but get lost and visit Dicksey Land and other strange places. Everyone is menaced by a fearsome wizard, and Ojo learns who his parents are.

This book features yet another island which floats in the sky: Umbrella Island, which flies by virtue of a huge umbrella with lifting and shielding powers. The king is not very good at steering the flying island; he bumps it into a giant's head. For compensation, Loxo, the great brute, demands the King's daughter Gureeda, whom he mistakes for a boy, as a servant to lace his huge boots. However, he grants the Umbrella Islanders three months to train the child to be a bootlacer.

Meanwhile, the boy Speedy (from The Yellow Knight of Oz) returns for another adventure. While inspecting a dinosaur skeleton, Speedy is blown by a geyser into the air. The skeleton comes magically to life and becomes Terrybubble, a live dinosaur skeleton. Terrybubble and Speedy land on Umbrella Island. Speedy develops a friendship with Princess Gureeda. He also becomes friendly with the island's resident wizard, Waddy. An unscrupulous minister, however, notices that Speedy and Gureeeda look very much alike and could pass for fraternal twins. He hatches a plot to compensate the giant by handing Speedy over to him as a slave instead of Gureeda. Terrybubble learns of this plot, and he parachutes off the island with Speedy and Gureeda. Unfortunately, all three are captured by Loxo, and it is up to the wizard Waddy to save them.

This Oz mystery starts in Skampavia, where King Skamperoo wishes for a horse using enchanted emerald necklaces. When Chalk, a talking Horse from Oz, falls from the sky, Skamperoo decides the emeralds must be from the Emerald City, and decides to conquer all of Oz. He magically causes all the residents of Oz to forget their rightful rulers and accept him as their emperor instead. Only Dorothy and Pigasus, the flying pig, are able to remember Princess Ozma, the true ruler of Oz, and together they set out to rescue her.

Captain Samuel Salt (from Pirates in Oz) sails the Nonestic Ocean and discovers Ozamaland, a legendary land of flying animals, as well as the famous White City of Om, and other places.

A take-no-nonsense heroine, Mandy from Mt. Mern is a Mernite, a race of seven-handed people. One day, while Mandy is trying to gather her goats, the rock she is standing on is blown into the air and into Oz. She lands in Keretaria in the Munchkin Country and meets Nox the white Royal Ox. They then foil the evil plans of the Wizard of Wutz. This is also the last appearance of Ruggedo, the Gnome King.

In this story, young King Randy of Regalia (from Thompson's The Purple Prince of Oz) is visited by his old friend, Kabumpo, the Elegant Elephant of Pumperdink. Together, they set out to visit their friend Jinnicky the Red Jinn (also from Purple Prince) in the Land of Ev. On the way, they meet Planetty, the silver Princess from Anuther Planet, and her fire-breathing colt, Thun. When they reach Jinnicky's palace, they find that Jinnicky has been deposed and enchanted by an untrustworthy slave.

Soar to the Stratosphere with Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Wizard of Oz himself as they attempt to find the missing Ozoplane and save Oz and Jellia Jamb from the clutches of King Strut in Ruth Plumly Thompson's OZOPLANING WITH THE WIZARD OF OZ.

The Wizard of Oz has built two Ozzy spaceships to present to Princess Ozma. But before he can show them to her one of them mysteriously takes off with the Tin Woodman, Jellia Jamb, and the Soldier with the Green Whiskers aboard. The errant spaceship flies to Stratovania where King Strut learns of Oz and decides it really belongs to him--and he want Jellia to become his wife!