On the 18th birthday of Prince Pompadore of Pumperdink (a tiny kingdom way up in the northern part of the Gilliken Country of Oz), a magic scroll puts quite a damper on the party by announcing the Prince must marry a "proper fairy princess" within 7 days or his kingdom and all its inhabitants will disappear forever. Having heard of Princess Ozma, "Pompa" heads for the Emerald City to marry her, accompanied by his faithful companion, the Elegant Elephant named Kabumpo.
But Ozma's palace has just disappeared, because Ruggedo, the ex-Gnome King is up to his old tricks: having happened upon Glegg's Box of Mixed Magic while tunneling under the Emerald City, he blew himself up to giant size, and walked away with the palace (and most of our friends from Oz inside) stuck on the crown of his head! Two other new but critical characters in this adventure are Peg (aka Peg Amy, Trot's wooden doll, brought to life by Ruggedo through experiments with Glegg's Box), and Wag, a rabbit (blown up to human size by the same method). There are also many passing curiosities, such as the land of the Figure Heads, the Kingdom of Rith Metic, and the most novel method of crossing the Deadly Desert yet: a large piece of land, known as the Runaway Country, because each of its ten mountains has a foot, so it is running on them to a place where it can be its own kingdom -- perhaps as an island in the Nonestic Ocean! Unfortunately, it tends to kidnap characters along the way.This 1922 book was Thompson's second Oz pastiche after the death of Baum, and holds up well, especially with the plentiful and marvelous drawings of John R. Neill, who illustrated most of Baum's (and many other) Oz books.
This report prepared by David Loftus
