The editorialist describes another collection of tales as 'a perfectly good book of fairy stories for children, but no sort of fairy story for people who know what the real thing is' (140). We cannot write about fairies with honesty any more than we can write about Greek gods' (142).
But the real note of sincerity can never come back in this age. 'Not so long as men like Baum can counterfeit it. 'Is the age of fairy-tale writing ?' the writer asks. Observing that 'behind the scenes you could see the smile of the showman' (140, 141), the writer describes Baum as a wizard of sorts, projecting images on a screen to entertain his audience, an audience who feigns belief just as much as the author does. But the announcement of the fairy tale's demise is a bit late, the article implies, because 'a fairy story has to be written by one who believes in fairies,' and Baum did not. While this article is ostensibly an obituary, it mourns the death of the fairy tale genre as much as it does one of its artists.
Frank Baum is dead, and the children have suffered a loss they do not know' ('Fairy Tales' 140). In 1919, The New York Timesran an editorial lamenting the end of an era: 'L.
