List of Oz characters (created by Baum)
This is a list of characters in the original Oz books by American author L. Frank Baum. The majority of characters listed here unless noted otherwise have appeared in multiple books under various plotlines. Oz is made up of four divisions that surround the Emerald City in the center. The country as a whole was originally enchanted by a character named Queen Lurline, who is described in the Oz backstory. Additional characters were added in regions surrounding The Land of Oz (beyond the deserts) as the series progressed.
Aside from the immigrant humans and Dorothy's and Betsy's pets, the characters here are each listed under what division they are most associated with in the storyline or storylines.
Aunt Em and Uncle Henry appear in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. They are Dorothy Gale's guardian aunt and uncle. They live a joyless and gray life on a small farm on the prairies of Kansas. Neither of them believe their niece when she tells them she has been to the Land of Oz; they consider her a mere dreamer, as her dead mother had been. This changes when the two later face foreclosure on their farm. Dorothy arranges with Princess Ozma to bring them to Oz, so that they can escape their bleak fates and be safe and finally content. Eventually, in The Emerald City of Oz, they move permanently to Oz and take up jobs there.
Betsy Bobbin is a fictional character in L. Frank Baum's Land of Oz.[1] Betsy is portrayed with various hair colors throughout the series; in her initial appearances her hair was colored as blonde, strawberry blonde or light brown. Later appearances depicted her as brunette or with auburn hair. Betsy first appears in Baum's 1913 stage play The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, and then in his 1914 novel Tik-Tok of Oz, wherein she teams up with the Shaggy Man and together they go to the Nome King's Caverns.
In the book series Betsy arrives to Oz from Oklahoma with a mule named Hank, and she is shown as a constant companion of both Dorothy and Trot in the later books. In The Lost Princess of Oz she is said to be one year older than Dorothy Gale. Betsy is more passive than Dorothy, and in one book she is described as shy. Betsy was later made a Princess of Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson, and she also appears as the protagonist of Thompson's The Hungry Tiger of Oz in which she helps a young prince from a kingdom called Rash regain his throne.
Button-Bright (real name: Saladin Paracelsus de Lambertine Evagne von Smith) is a character who first appears in the 1909 book The Road to Oz.[2] When Button-Bright first appears, he is shown as a little boy who answers most questions with "Don't know." In the story Button's head is temporarily changed into a fox's head by King Dox of Foxville; upon arriving in the Land of Oz, Billina and Tik-Tok took Button-Bright to the Truth Pond so that he could regain his head. He later makes an appearance at Princess Ozma's birthday party.
