Excerpt from The Lost Princess of Oz Some of my youthful readers are developing won derful imaginations. This pleases me. Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking machine and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain-machinery whizzing are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imagi native man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales are of untold value in developing imagination in the young. I believe it. Among the letters I receive from children are manycontaining suggestions of what to write about in the next Oz Book. Some of the ideas advanced are mighty interesting, while others are too extravagant to be seriously considered even in a fairy tale. Yet I like them all, and I must admit that the main idea in The Lost Princess of Oz was suggested to me by a sweet little girl of eleven who called to see me and to talk about the Land of Oz. Said she I s'pose if Ozma ever got lost, or stolen, ev'rybody in Oz would be dreadful sorry. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.