"The Man with the Red Shirt" is a short story by L. Frank Baum. It is important in his canon in that it provides a rare illustration of the first, oral phase of Baum's storytelling career.
Baum composed the story around 1896 or 1897, but never wrote it down. In 1905 his niece Matilda Jewell Gage had to submit a story for her English class at Northwestern University, and Baum told her the tale. (She submitted it, and got an A.) The text was not printed until it appeared in The Baum Bugle in 1973.
References[]
- Katharine M. Rogers. L. Frank Baum, Creator of Oz: A Biography. New York, St. Martin's Press, 2002.