"The Annotated Wizard of Oz" [.]

[fiefoe]

At one point, Hearn praises Baum's economy of language - 'It must be a remarkable sight indeed to dazzle the painted eyes of a scarecrow!'  More examples:

• She saw her black bees in little heaps like fine coal.
• As for the Lion, he wiped his eyes so often with the tip of his tail that it became quite wet, and he was obliged to go out into the court-yard and hold it in the sun till it dried.
• Said the Tin Woodman. "For my part, I will bear all the unhappiness without a murmur, if you will give me the heart."
• Aunt Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning; and unless the crops are better this year than they were last I am sure Uncle Henry cannot afford it.
  

It's certainly plausible that green spectacles is 'Baum's response to Immanuel Kant's belief that one "superimposes" one's interior self on the real world, which only distorts its perception', but this anecdote is more interesting:

    Austrian artist Lisbeth Zwerger, who illustrated the 1996 North-South edition of The Wizard, admitted that "even though green is my favorite color, I was so intimidated by the need to paint all the scenes in the Emerald City in shades of green that it seemed as though the book would never be completed. The idea of including a pair of green- tinted glasses saved the project. It allowed me much greater freedom."

'I am Oz, the Great and Terrible.' Hearn also rightly pointed out that Baum's Oz is as bombastic as Shelley's Ozymandias (aka Ramesses II): My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

This bit about 'The Dainty China Country' sounds a little far-fetched, but points for knowing Chinese history:
   
    "The China Princess, fearful that a mended crack might mar her beauty," noted Nye... "lives a lonely, isolated life, avoiding all contact with those who might chip her perfection." These sentiments are similar to those of Chinese Empress Dowager T'zu Hsi, whose isolationist policies against foreign barbarians led to the cultural wars that culminated in the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.

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