Lyman Frank Baum was an American author of children's books, best known for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...

. He wrote thirteen novel sequels, nine other fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 novels, and a host of other works (55 novels in total, plus four "lost" novels, 82 short stories, over 200 poems, an unknown number of scripts, and many miscellaneous writings), and made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen. His works predicted such century-later commonplaces as television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

, laptop computers (The Master Key

The Master Key (novel)

The Master Key: An Electrical Fairy Tale, Founded Upon the Mysteries of Electricity and the Optimism of Its Devotees is a 1901 novel by L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It was illustrated by F. Y. Cory.-Plot summary:...

), wireless telephones (Tik-Tok of Oz

Tik-Tok of Oz

Tik-Tok of Oz is the eighth Land of Oz book written by L. Frank Baum, published on June 19, 1914. The book actually has little to do with Tik-Tok and is primarily the quest of the Shaggy Man to rescue his brother, and his resulting conflict with the Nome King.The endpapers of the first edition...

), women in high risk, action-heavy occupations (Mary Louise in the Country), and the ubiquity of advertising on clothing (Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work

Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work

Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work is a 1909 young adult novel, written by L. Frank Baum, famous as the creator of the Land of Oz. It is the fourth volume in the ten-book series Aunt Jane's Nieces, which was the greatest success of Baum's literary career after the Oz books themselves...

).
Baum was born in Chittenango, New York

Chittenango, New York

Chittenango is a village located in Madison County, New York, in the United States. The village is in the south part of the Town of Sullivan. The population was 5,081 at the 2010 census.- History :...

 in 1856, into a devout Methodist family of German

German American

German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...

 (paternal line) and Scots-Irish

Scots-Irish American

Scotch-Irish Americans are an estimated 250,000 Presbyterian and other Protestant dissenters from the Irish province of Ulster who immigrated to North America primarily during the colonial era and their descendants. Some scholars also include the 150,000 Ulster Protestants who immigrated to...

 (maternal line) origin, the seventh of nine children born to Cynthia Stanton and Benjamin Ward Baum, only five of whom survived into adulthood.