The Magical Monarch of Mo
Encyclopedia
The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People (1898) is the first full-length children's
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

 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...

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

. Originally published in 1899 as A New Wonderland, Being the First Account Ever Printed of the Beautiful Valley, and the Wonderful Adventures of Its Inhabitants, the book was reissued in 1903 with a new title in order to capitalize upon the alliterative title of Baum's successful 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...

. The book is only slightly altered--Mo is called Phunniland or Phunnyland, but aside from the last paragraph of the first chapter, they are essentially the same book. It is illustrated by Frank Ver Beck
Frank Ver Beck
William Francis "Frank" Ver Beck was an American illustrator known for his comedic drawings of animals.He was born in Richland Township, Belmont County, Ohio as the son of a shoemaker. He studied art and woodcarving under Mansfield, Ohio artist Robert R. "Railroad" Smith and worked as a wood...

.

Mo is much more of a nonsense
Nonsense
Nonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning. Sometimes in ordinary usage, nonsense is synonymous with absurdity or the ridiculous...

 book than Oz, bringing to mind Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...

, which is probably what the original title referred to.

Each chapter is a different story, unlike Baum's other books, which are full length stories. They do, however have a general throughline, and can be seen as an episodic novel.

Plot summary

Chapter One has no plot, but rather is a basic description of the Land of Mo, or "The Beautiful Valley". It explains that everyone in Mo is happy, and that the people never need to work, because everything they could desire grows on the trees, including items such as clothes. In A New Wonderland, the author mentions planning to move there himself, but this was omitted from subsequent editions.
Chapter Two: The Monarch of Mo goes to fight the Purple Dragon, which has just eaten all of the caramels in the land. The Dragon bites off his head, and the King is forced to go home headless. The King tries to make the best of it, but the Queen complains that she cannot kiss him anymore, so he issues an edict saying that whoever can make him a new head will get to marry one of the princesses. After two failures, a durable head is made out of wood by a wood-chopper. The Purple Dragon finds the wood-chopper and bites his head off, replacing it with the King's head. When the wood-chopper appears in court, he switches heads with the King, so that the King has his own head again and the wood-chopper has a wooden head he made. The King then tries to fulfill his promise, but the princesses refuse to marry a wooden-headed man. The wood-chopper then confronts the Purple Dragon, who tries its head-biting technique again, only to get its teeth stuck in the wooden head, thus letting the wood-chopper get his own head back so he can marry a princess.

Chapter Three: The Monarch meets a dog, who is a curiosity because there are no dogs in Mo. However, his majesty loses his temper and ends up kicking the dog who literally gets bent out of shape until he resumes his natural form again.

Chapter Four: Prince Zingle, the oldest Prince, is upset because the King will not let him milk the Ice-Cream Cow. Urged by the Purple Dragon, Zingle pushes his father down a large hole so he will become the King. The Monarch escapes from the hole and punishes Zingle by abandoning him on the Fruit Cake Island on the Rootbeer River, an island made of fruit cake. After a while, Prince Zingle gets such a furious stomachache from eating nothing but fruit cake that he repents.

Chapter Five: The King celebrates his birthday (which he does several times a year) by throwing a huge celebration, during which he entertains everyone with items from a magical casket. Everyone goes ice-skating on a lake of sugar-syrup. The sugar cracks and Princess Truella, Prince Jollikin and Nuphsed sink to the bottom. The King gets them out by fishing for them, baiting the line with a kiss for Truella and a laugh for Jollikin. But when it comes to getting Nuphsed, no one knows what he likes best, so they consult the Wise Donkey. The Wise Donkey suggests that they use an apple, knowing that it won't work. When it doesn't work, the Wise Donkey eats the apple and tells them to use a kind word. They do, and it works.

Chapter Six: King Scowleyow, who lives in a nearby country, hates the people of Mo, and has his people build a giant man out of cast-iron, designed to destroy Mo. They wind up the Cast-iron and he walks towards Mo, but trips on the dog. Prince Thinkabit figures out how to get rid of the Cast-iron Man: he tickles the Cast-iron man to get him on his back, then he pushes a pin in the Cast-iron Man to get him to stand up again, but now the Cast-iron Man is facing the other way, so he goes to King Scowleyow's kingdom and destroys it instead. The Cast-iron man eventually gets stuck in the mud at the bottom of the ocean and is never heard from again.

Chapter Seven: A boy named Timtom falls in love with Princess Pattycake, the most beautiful princess, who unfortunately has a bad temper and tries to beat anyone who talks to her. He journeys to see the Sorceress Maëtta to get her help, and along the way, he meets three animals, who agree to help him in return for gifts from Maëtta. Timtom gets a pill for getting rid of Pattycake's temper and the gifts for the animals, but they are stolen by a Sly Fox. Timtom manages to recover the gifts, thus pleasing the animals. He then goes to Pattycake and feeds her the pill. She loses her temper and then agrees to marry him.

Chapter Eight: A horrible monster called a gigaboo comes to Mo and starts destroying things. Prince Jollikin fights the gigaboo, and has his head, arms and legs cut off. Prince Jollikin manages to put himself back together, although at first he could only find his legs and head. He then saves the day by killing the gigaboo.

Chapter Nine: There is an evil wizard in Mo who is a midget and very sensitive about his height, so he tries to make a potion to increase his height. One of the ingredients of the potion is the big toe of a princess, so he steals the toe from Princess Truella. Truella gives chase, overcoming the obstacles the Wizard throws at her, and eventually kills the Wizard and recovers her toe.

Chapter Ten: The Duchess Bredenbutta falls asleep on her boat while it floats down the Rootbeer River, and so she gets too close to the waterfall at the end of the river and falls down. She ends up in Turvyland, where everything is opposite of the way it should be. With some help from a local named Upsydoun, she manages to get back to her home.

Chapter Eleven: The King's animal crackers, which are real animals, fight amongst each other, putting the King in a bad mood, so when Prince Fiddlecumdoo asks to leave Mo, the King consents, although it is a bad idea. Prince Fiddlecumdoo leaves and meets a friendly giant named Hartilaf. Hartilaf's wife accidentally runs the prince through a clothes-wringer, and Prince Fiddlecumdoo returns home, completely flat. They use an air pump to get him back to normal.

Chapter Twelve: Prince Zingle builds a large kite, which flies into the air, taking Zingle with it, eventually landing in the Land of the Civilized Monkeys, where monkeys act like humans. The monkeys do not speak English (but rather, they speak Monkey) and have never seen a human before, so they think Zingle is a dangerous animal and lock him in the zoo, where all of the monkeys come to see him, including two professors who believe that Zingle may be the missing link
Missing Link
Missing link is a nonscientific term for any transitional fossil, especially one connected with human evolution; see Transitional fossil - Missing links and List of transitonal fossils - Human evolution.Missing Link may refer to:...

. Prince Zingle manages to escape and get back home.

Chapter Thirteen: The King's plum-pudding has been stolen, so he asks his wise men who did it. The wise men blame the fox, who is captured. The fox explains that he did not do it, as he was busy curing his family's sore throats by taking out the throats and turning them inside-out, then drying them in the sun. The wise men then blame the bullfrog, who is also captured. The bullfrog explains that he did not do it, as he and his wife were busy trying to save their tadpoles, who were eaten by a large fish. The wise men then blame the Yellow Hen, who is also captured. She explains that she did not do it, as her last batch of eggs accidentally produced a Hawk, not a chicken, and the Hawk took her away to a different country, and she spent the last nine days returning to Mo. The King, furious at the wise men for being wrong three times, has them put into a meat-grinder, so that they are mixed into one wise man, who tells the King that the Purple Dragon stole the plum-pudding.

Chapter Fourteen: The King holds a council of war to try to figure out how to destroy the Purple Dragon. They decide that the dragon cannot be destroyed, but at least they could rip out its teeth and make it harmless. They build a giant pair of forceps and clamp it to one of the Purple Dragon's teeth. The Purple Dragon winds its tail around a pillar to avoid being pulled by the people. As it turns out, his tooth cannot be removed, even though the men run to the other side of the valley; instead, the Purple Dragon is stretched all the way across the valley, so that it is no thicker than a fiddle-string. Prince Fiddlecumdoo cuts the Purple Dragon into fiddle-strings, and so the Valley of Mo is freed from its worst enemy.

Characters

  • The Monarch: The Monarch of Mo is the ruler of Mo, and rarely unhappy. He tries his best to make everyone as happy as possible.
  • The Queen: She rarely appears, but when she does, she acts more like a typical wife/mother than a typical Queen.
  • Prince Zingle: The oldest prince, who tries to kill the King in order to gain the crown, but fails and later repents. His name is a play on single, because he was left single on an island. Later on, he accidentally reaches the Land of the Civilized Monkeys, where he is put in a zoo, but manages to escape.
  • Prince Thinkabit: The smartest of the princes, who is sometimes called upon to figure out solutions to problems.
  • Prince Jollikin: He is the most playful of the princes, as evidenced by his name, which is based on the word "Jolly". He fights the Gigaboo and loses, but when he tries to fight the Gigaboo a second time, he wins and saves Mo from destruction.
  • Prince Fiddlecumdoo: The youngest prince, who is somewhat spoiled. He plays the fiddle very well, and visits the giant Hartilaf, whose wife accidentally crushes him flat.
  • (Prince) Timtom: Timtom falls in love with the Princess Pattycake, and undergoes several dangers in order to cure her of her bad temper. He succeeds and then they get married, and he becomes a Prince.
  • Princess Pattycake: She is the most beautiful of the King's daughters, but has a bad temper and tries to hurt anyone who talks to her. Timtom manages to cure her, and she then agrees to marry him.
  • Princess Truella: Her big toe is stolen by the Wizard, and she undergoes many hardships in order to get it back.
  • The Wood-chopper: He builds a head out of wood for the King when the Purple Dragon steals the King's head, and after some misadventures with the Purple Dragon, restores his and the King's head to their proper bodies.
  • The Purple Dragon: A monster that annoys the people of Mo by eating their food and causing general mischief. He is eventually defeated.
  • The Dog: The only dog in Mo. At first he is "something of a wag", but later on becomes a respected person in Mo, and even saves Mo from the Cast-iron Man, although accidentally.
  • The Wise Donkey: A donkey who ate all the books in Mo, so he absorbed all the knowledge in them and is the smartest person in Mo. The King sometimes consults the Wise Donkey when he wants help, and the Wise Donkey usually helps him (sometimes the Wise Donkey acts in its own interest, not the King's). The Wise Donkey reports in The Patchwork Girl of Oz
    The Patchwork Girl of Oz
    The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum, is a children's novel, the seventh set in the Land of Oz. Characters include the Woozy, Ojo "the Unlucky", Unc Nunkie, Dr. Pipt, Scraps , and others. The book was first published on July 1, 1913, with illustrations by John R. Neill...

    that he became stranded in Oz when he came to visit on the very day that Glinda
    Glinda
    Glinda is a fictional character in the Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum. She is the most powerful sorceress of Oz, ruler of the Quadling Country south of the Emerald City, and protector of Princess Ozma.- Literature :Baum's 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...

     cut it off from the rest of the world.
  • Nuphsed: The King's chamberlain, who gets no lines whatsoever.
  • Scowleyow: A tyrannical king who builds the Cast-iron Man in an attempt to destroy Mo for no particular reason except that he is jealous of how happy they are.
  • The Cast-iron Man: A robotic creature built by Scowleyow to destroy the Mo people. It trips on the dog, and thanks to Prince Thinkabit, the Mo people manage to get rid of the Cast-iron man by turning it around and setting it to destroy Scowleyow's kingdom instead.
  • The Sorceress Maëtta: A good sorceress who helps Timtom and Truella when they ask for her help.
  • Rabbit: The rabbit lives outside of Maëtt's palace and digs a tunnel leading inside the palace for Timtom, in exchange for a new tail. When Timtom cannot give the rabbit a new tail, it lets Timtom pass anyway.
  • Spider: The spider builds a web that forms a bridge over the river of needles, so that Timtom can cross it, in exchange for a new eye.
  • Bird: A bird flies Timtom over a gulf in exchange for a song.
  • Sly Fox: The Sly Fox steals the presents that Timtom receives from Maëtta, but finds no use for them.
  • Gigaboo: A four-mouthed, seven-eyed monster that starts destroying things in Mo. Prince Jollikin kills it.
  • The Wizard: The Wizard steals Truella's toe to use in a potion. Truella defeats him and gets her toe back.
  • Duchess Bredenbutta: A distant relative of the King (42nd cousin) who accidentally goes to Turvyland, where everything is the opposite of how it should be.
  • Upsydoun: A resident of Turvyland, who invites the Duchess to dinner and helps her return home.
  • Hartilaf: A giant who lives in the valley next to Mo. He likes to play jokes and have fun.
  • Hartilaf's Wife: A giantess who married Hartilaf. She is more responsible than he is, although she accidentally runs Prince Fiddlecumdoo through a clothes-wringer.
  • Monkeys: The monkeys live in the Land of Civilized Monkeys, and therefore are civilized (they wear fancy clothes and have a well-structured society and so on). They do not know about humans, so when they meet Prince Zingle, they think he is an animal and put him in the zoo.
  • The Wise Men: The King's three wise men are rather stupid and ridiculous, so they are not very helpful. The King eventually puts the three of them together to form one wise man.
  • The Wise Man: The wise man, made up from parts of the three wise men, is wise and able to help the King, unlike the wise men.
  • The Yellow Hen: The wise men falsely accuse of stealing the King's plum-pudding, when she was not even in Mo at the time of the crime. She raises a baby hawk along with her babies, not knowing that it is a hawk until it tries to kill her.
  • The Fox: The wise men falsely accuse him of stealing the King's plum-pudding, when he and his family was throatless at the time.
  • Dr. Prariedog: Dr. Prariedog tells the Fox how to cure a sore throat.
  • The Bullfrog: The wise men falsely accuse him of stealing the King's plum-pudding, when he was fishing at the time, for his tadpoles were stuck in the fish.


Mo in other Baum books

Some of the characters in the Oz books
The Oz books
The Oz books form a book series that begins with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , and that relates the fictional history of the Land of Oz. Oz was created by author L. Frank Baum, who went on to write fourteen full-length Oz books, all of which are in the public domain in the United States...

 are or appear to be derived from characters in The Magical Monarch of Mo, such as:
  • The Cast-iron Man - He is similar to Tik-Tok of the Oz books, because they are both men who run off of machinery instead of being truly alive.
  • The Yellow Hen - She is similar to Billina
    Billina
    Billina is a character in the Oz books of L. Frank Baum.She is a yellow hen tossed overboard in a storm with Dorothy Gale in the novel Ozma of Oz, the third Oz book, and a sequel to L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...

    , who is also known as "The Yellow Hen", because they both are sassy and have fixed habits when it comes to laying eggs.
  • The Sorceress Maëtta - She is similar to the Sorceress Glinda
    Glinda
    Glinda is a fictional character in the Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum. She is the most powerful sorceress of Oz, ruler of the Quadling Country south of the Emerald City, and protector of Princess Ozma.- Literature :Baum's 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...

    , because they are both kind, beautiful and powerful sorceresses that others call upon when they need help. She replaces Glinda in The Woggle-Bug
    The Woggle-Bug (musical)
    The Woggle-Bug is a musical based on The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum, with book and lyrics by the author and music by Frederic Chapin that opened June 18, 1905 at the Garrick Theatre in Chicago under the direction of Frank Smithson, a Shubert Organization employee. The musical was a...

    , a musical extravaganza by Baum and Frederic Chopin
    Frédéric Chopin
    Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

     based on The Marvelous Land of Oz
    The Marvelous Land of Oz
    The Marvelous Land of Oz: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, commonly shortened to The Land of Oz, published on July 5, 1904, is the second of L. Frank Baum's books set in the Land of Oz, and the sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This and the next...

    , since aside from stating that it is in the Land of Oz, all references to any material in The Wizard of Oz
    The Wizard of Oz (1902 stage play)
    The Wizard of Oz was a 1902 musical extravaganza based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, which was originally published in 1900...

    play are omitted, since the show was concurrently running—no Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, or Glinda, and the Emerald City
    Emerald City
    The Emerald City is the fictional capital city of the Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's Oz books, first described in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...

     becomes the "City of Jewels."
  • The Wise Donkey - He has a cameo in The Patchwork Girl of Oz
    The Patchwork Girl of Oz
    The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum, is a children's novel, the seventh set in the Land of Oz. Characters include the Woozy, Ojo "the Unlucky", Unc Nunkie, Dr. Pipt, Scraps , and others. The book was first published on July 1, 1913, with illustrations by John R. Neill...



Part of The Scarecrow of Oz
The Scarecrow of Oz
The Scarecrow of Oz is the ninth book set in the Land of Oz written by L. Frank Baum. Published on July 16, 1915, it was Baum's personal favorite of the Oz books and tells of Cap'n Bill and Trot journeying to Oz and, with the help of the Scarecrow, overthrowing the cruel King Krewl of Jinxland...

takes place in Mo, although none of the characters from The Magical Monarch of Mo appear in that book. The principal character we meet in Mo in that book is The Bumpy Man, who is first introduced in that book.

External links

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