The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – Lyra’s Classics

Hi everyone,

So, here we are again! It’s time for the release of the next book. This time it is a Lyra’s Classics title and it is the follow up to our last book in the series: A Christmas Carol.

The next title in our Classics imprint is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. First published in 1900, this is a book that was insanely popular in its time, later made even more iconic with the movie ‘The Wizard of Oz’ starring Judy Garland which was released 20 years after the author’s death. It was one of the first great American children’s fantasy books and it was to be the beginning of one of the most enduring worlds in literary history. Baum went on to write a further 13 Oz novels in his lifetime and the series was continued for decades by a handful of other authors. (Over 40 titles in all). With stage shows like ‘Wicked’, Oz continues to live on to this day, being enjoyed by generation after generation.

The artwork for our limited edition is by the amazing Gregory Manchess, who provided us with the illustrations for our earlier edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Greg has created 22 oil paintings for Oz, including 4 double page spreads and they are all absolutely stunning! Greg has wanted to illustrate this story for so long and it really was a passion project for him. He has put his heart and soul into this project and we are so very glad that he agreed to work with us on it. It is a richly illustrated book and is so, so beautiful to behold.

Available for sale, there will be 250 copies of the Numbered edition and 26 copies of the Lettered edition. As is the case with all Classics titles, there will be NO Standard edition. 

Details can now be found on the  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz project page and on the Shop Page.

As usual, current Lyra’s Classics rights holders will be contacted first and then after that we will hold lotteries for all remaining copies. Rights holders currently have the rights to purchase the first 150 copies of the Numbered edition (numbers 1-150). There will be a further 100 copies available for general sale.

Rights holders currently have the rights to purchase all 26 Lettered edition copies.

There will be lotteries for any Lettered copies that become available, and a lottery for any available rights copies (1-150) and non-rights copies (151-250) of the Numbered edition. If you are successful in the Numbered lottery, you will be informed as to whether your copy comes with rights to the next title or not before you make your purchase. If there are any books remaining after the lotteries, they will be placed for sale on the website.

Please visit the FAQ page for more info on how the rights system works across both of our imprints.

Rights holders will be emailed on Friday the 19^th of April and will have until Tuesday the 23^rd of April to make their purchase. The lottery form for the remaining Numbered copies (and potentially a lottery for any available Lettered copies) will open on the product pages in the shop at midday BST on Thursday the 25^th of April and will be open for entries until midday BST on Saturday the 27^th of April.

Please note that all times given here are in BST (British Summer Time) which is equivalent to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) plus 1 hour.

To recap, here are the dates for the sale of Oz –

• Friday 19^th April – rights holder emails go out
• Tuesday 23^rd April – rights holder period ends
• Thursday 25^th April – lottery forms open on the website
• Saturday 27^th April – lottery forms close on the website
• Monday 29^th April – lottery winner emails go out

As always with these sales, please bear with me over the next few weeks! All of the emailing and manual invoicing will be done by myself only, so I will be very busy!

Cheers!

Rich