I wonder how "Books of Wonder" is able to publish & sell identical reproductions of ALL the OZ books???....I picked this up...Copyright 1914 & exact similarities to its 1st edition......Or maybe this is a 1st???..LOL...In my Dreams!
Tik-Tok's copyright has expired; it entered the public domain in 1990. Here's a lengthy article on the US copyright status of the Oz books and movies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyr..._of_Oz_and_related_works_in_the_United_States "Currently, twenty-three Oz books and five movies are in the public domain. Nothing else will enter the public domain until 2019 at the earliest." Due to changes in US copyright law, some later books by other authors will remain under copyright until at least 2085; the famous 1939 movie "The Wizard of Oz" will be under copyright until 2035.
When the copyright is gone, it is gone. The book can be republished in an exactly identical form. They can if desired make changes, without consulting the former copyright owner, so there is no guarantee that it is identical, of course. But in most cases where copyright has expired and the book has been reissued, the re-issuer will want to make it identical, to cater to all the potential buyers who couldn't afford the original.
What makes you say your book was printed/published by "books of wonder"? Maybe i'm missing it, but I see no mention of that in the photos provided. According to the booksofwonder website, they are just a book store that sells new and collectible/rare books.
They may not be the publisher....I thought they may be (According to my book...Publisher is Reilly & Britton)...Books of Wonder does sell it....Don`t know who printed it???...Does not say??
Well, to me, your book looks like an original edition published by Reilly & Britton. Nothing to do with Books of Wonder. Does it have color illustrations?
It does look original to me,also!...Has the color illustrations & the color maps on inside of front & back covers....That is what confuses me!....These are what "Books of Wonder" sells on their site http://booksofwonder.com/theworldofoz.aspx
As has been said in the above posts, they are just recent editions published by some company. Not sure how faithful they are to the originals, but I really don't think they'd advertise the original publisher over their own company. You could have a decent book there. You'll have to find out the first edition points. Go search for first edition listings on ebay/abebooks/wherever and compare them to your copy.
Well. My specialty are Wizard of Oz books and I am running a website www.rareozbooks.com. This book is a recent reprint from collection of 15 books that were sold by Bradford Exchange. This copy looks like an original first edition with all the plates and maps pasted as an end papers. After examining both copies original and a reprint, I noticed main difference that original copy has books belong page, while reprint does not has. Also in copy that I examined has a map pasted upside down on the rear. Of course all the plates coated with glossy paper on both sides while an original copies are glossy only on one side. I hope it helps.
As others have said, more research might be needed to distinguish an original from a reissue. I believe the William Morrow/Books of Wonder reissue was published in 1996, but I'm not familiar with the distinguishing points - and there may well have been other reissues, since the copyright expired in 1990. The first edition indeed had maps, and I don't know if any reissues had them. Id guess that the reissues have some identifying features, whether they have maps or not; but lack of identifying features would not be a copyright violation - though there might be other legal implications. I was focusing on the original question, "How can Books of Wonder publish identical reproductions?" Answer: "Copyright expired."