The 31 Days of Halloween, Oz Style: Day 14

While L. Frank Baum is generally credited as the creator of Oz, he did have some help with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from his illustrator and (at the time) close friend, W. W. Denslow. But Denslow got a bit of a swollen head over it, and when it came time to create a musical version of Oz, as co-creator and joint copyright holder of the book he demanded half the royalties, even though he had very little to do with the actual creation or production of the show. He didn't get half, but he did get a large chunk, which Baum resented, destroying their friendship. I suspect Denslow still wanted money from a big show, however, so he and Paul West created The Pearl and the Pumpkin, a Halloween-themed show about the supernatural goings-on at a Vermont pumpkin farm. And if you're going to have a Broadway show, you may as well also have a tie-in book. (Hey, it worked for The Wizard of Oz!) The show didn't do terribly well, and even the book didn't make much of a splash, despite Denslow's charming illustrations, but you con buy an excellent and affordable reprint edition. It really isn't much of a story, with farmer's assistant Joe Miller being turned into a pumpkin boy (at roughly the same time L. Frank Baum was creating Jack Pumpkinhead, no less), then lots of set-ups for a spectacular number that probably worked great on stage but kind of loses something on the printed page. But it is very Halloween-y, and Denslow's work still shines, so this may be something worth adding to your collection.