Prince Silverwings facts for kids
Prince Silverwings and Other Stories is a children's book written by Edith Ogden Harrison and published in 1902. This book is most famous because Edith Harrison worked with L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, on a play based on the book. This play was a big musical show, but it was never fully finished or performed.
The Unfinished Musical Play
L. Frank Baum didn't just help write the story for the play; he also wrote music for it! One song from the play, called "Down Among the Marshes," still exists today. It was recorded in 1999 by James Patrick Doyle on his album Before the Rainbow: The Original Music of Oz.
The full plan for the play, called a Scenario and General Synopsis, was published in 1982. Only 125 copies were made, and they had special drawings by Dick Martin. You can also find a copy of this plan at the Chicago History Museum.
How the Play Connects to Oz
Even though the play was never performed, it's been studied by experts. In 1974, a magazine called The Baum Bugle published an article about it. The authors of this article, David L. Greene, Peter Hanff, and Michael Patrick Hearn, believe that the ideas in Prince Silverwings helped inspire some famous characters and stories from Baum's Land of Oz books.
They suggest that early versions of characters like the Nome King, Trot, Polychrome, and John Dough might have come from this collaboration. They also think that some of the main ideas for Oz books like Ozma of Oz, Tik-Tok of Oz, and Rinkitink in Oz were influenced by this unfinished play.
