Dr. Douglas G. Greene is a highly respected scholar in several fields. He taught English history (Tudor and Stuart period) for many years at Old Dominion University. He has also won many awards for his groundbreaking scholarship on mystery and fantasy. He and his brother, David L. Greene, were involved in the International Wizard of Oz Club from its earliest days. They were both awarded the L. Frank Baum Memorial Award in 1965; they were two of the four charter members profiled in the 2017 Baum Bugle article “Anniversary Recollections: Sixty Years in the Oz Club.”
His research on the Oz series has included numerous essays in The Baum Bugle, co-writing a biography of W.W. Denslow (with Michael Patrick Hearn), and co-writing the reference work Bibliographia Oziana (with Peter E. Hanff).
He was kind enough to answer a few questions. The following is the second part of an interview with him, focusing on his Oz research.
Interview Questions
How did you become interested in Oz?
My mother read them to my brothers and me as children, and later I became a close friend of Ruth Plumly Thompson. My brothers, my wife, and I visited her on several occasions. I was one of the founding members of the International Wizard of Oz Club in 1957, and later briefly, an editor of its journal The Baum Bugle.[1] My late twin brother, David Greene, was even more involved.
How long after that did you become interested in detective stories?
About the same time.
What were some of your brother’s contributions to Oz scholarship?
My twin brother was a genuine scholar of L. Frank Baum and The Wizard of Oz. We were both founding members of the International Wizard of Oz Club. When the Club’s magazine was about to fold, he saved it by becoming editor and roping in Jim Haff and me to help him. He was the main editor for many years and raised the magazine’s standards.[2] He collaborated with Oz illustrator Dick Martin on a now-classic book, The Oz Scrapbook.
He was also a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists and editor for many years of The American Genealogist. He wrote several articles on the families of the Salem witches.
I said this about him at the start of my eulogy at his memorial:
“Dave was kind and loving.
Dave was brilliant
And thoughtful
And generous
And a superb teacher
And an accomplished writer
And a great scholar
And one of America’s finest genealogists.”
What are some of your memories of Ruth Plumly Thompson?
I started corresponding with Ruth Plumly Thompson in 1956, and she replied on her “Royal Historian of Oz” stationery. We talked about everything under the sun—not only Oz. She had been to England and we shared anecdotes about our trips. She was surprised that the buildings were so cold. And we exchanged comments about fellow Ozians, some of hers being exceptionally frank—which is why I have never shared them! Some of her correspondence has appeared for sale online, and though I have more than 100 letters and cards from her, I would never sell them.
She and I also talked politics. She was a liberal Republican back in the 1960s, when that was fashionable, and she was progressive in her social attitudes. Oz fan Jim Haff wanted to assemble a collection of her non-Oz fantasies, but he never did so. After Jim’s death, I edited a collection of those stories, The Wizard of Way-Up and Other Wonders, and credited Jim as co-editor. Later, I worked with Ruth Berman on a successor volume, Sissajig and Other Surprises.
The first time my brother Dave and I visited her, she gave us ice cream topped with creme-de-menthe— the first time (but not the last) I had anything alcoholic.
Ruth sent a telegram of congratulations to Sandi and me on our wedding day, August 13, 1966. After spending our honeymoon in Maine, we called her at her home in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, on the way to my graduate work at the University of Chicago.
What were some things that made her approach to the series different than Baum’s approach?
Ruth was less philosophical than Baum, and she saw Oz as expanding into the inclusion of many tiny, Balkanesque kingdoms. Both of the authors loved puns, but Ruth used them over and over. She was more interested in pure adventure than Baum, and her heroes were usually adolescent boys while Baum’s were usually very young girls. Someone might read something into that…
What led you to work with Michael Patrick Hearn on a book about Wizard of Oz illustrator W.W. Denslow?
I became interested in Denslow through friendship with Dick Martin, the later Oz illustrator. After I discovered that Mike was also investigating Denslow, we agreed to work together on a biography published dark-ages ago.[3]
What were some surprising things you learned as you were researching the book?
Mike and I found many new things about Den in elderly periodicals and files of publishers and advertisers. Most surprising, I suppose, was his work on commercial pamphlets in his later years.
You note in your Carr biography that he was saddened to learn the Oz books weren’t well known in England when he moved there in the 1930s.[4] Has that changed? Do you find the Oz books have a truly global appeal?
I am an Anglophile and traveled to the UK frequently—even twice leading a church group—but I have yet to notice much interest in Oz. The appeal seems to be much stronger in Italy, Japan, and Denmark.
John Dickson Carr writes in his Writer’s Digest article “The Detective in Fiction” that “detective stories are only fairy stories for those who have grown up.”[5] Do you see any common territory between those genres?
As I said in an earlier response,[6] Carr was a big fan of the Oz books and the fantasies of James Branch Cabell, and he cites Alice in Wonderland in his writings. G.K. Chesterton also saw similarities between the genres. I should add that both detective stories and fairy tales are imaginative and bring things together at the conclusion.
We’ve reached an interesting point in Oz fandom where it’s not just been adapted, but become a mythology people add to or reframe—like Gregory Maguire with his book Wicked. How do you feel as a devoted Oz fan about that process? Accept it, worry people will mess too much with Baum’s vision, or somewhere in the middle?
I don’t like most of the Oz pastiches—one is called Hitler in Oz, for Heaven’s sake. Most of them lack Baum’s (and Ruth’s) genius, and I ignore them whenever I can.
What are some Oz scholarship topics you would like to see more people explore—or topics you feel are over-analyzed?
I have seen too much from newly-minted fans and scholars about bisexuality in the Oz books. Baum and Ruth Thompson did not consciously include sex.
You’ve been very active in Oz fandom—your membership in the Oz club, contributions to the Baum Bugle, and so on. Why do you think Baum’s stories have sustained fans when so many other fantasy series get forgotten?
They often have a fundamental Quest motif, and the characters have warmth often lacking in High Fantasy—warmth is present in C.S. Lewis, as well.
Readers can find out more about Greene’s Oz scholarship by exploring the Oz Club’s website. More information about his scholarship on mystery fiction can be found through Crippen & Landru’s website, and through both his Oz fandom page and Wikipedia page.
[1] According to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, Douglas served as the editor for The Baum Bugle in 1969 alongside David L. Greene, James “Jim” E. Haff, and Peter E. Hanff.
[2] David L. Greene (1944-2020) edited The Baum Bugle from 1968-1974 and 1977-1978. Along with co-writing The Oz Scrapbook, he is remembered for editing the anthology The Purple Dragon and Other Fantasies by L. Frank Baum.
[3] W.W. Denslow by Douglas G. Greene and Michael Patrick Hearn was published in 1976.
[4] See John Dickson Carr: The Man Who Explained Miracles by Douglas G. Greene. New York, New York: Otto Penzler Books, 1995, p. 15.
[5] See p. 53 in “The Detective in Fiction” in Legends of Literature: The Best Articles, Interviews, and Essays from the Archives of Writer’s Digest magazine edited by Phillip Sexton. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writers Digest Books, 2007, pp. 48-53.
Fellowship & Fairydust 