John R. Neill

John R. Neill (12 Nov. 1877–19 Sept. 1943) illustrated all of L. Frank Baum’s Oz novels except the first, as well as such works as John Dough and the Cherub and Sky Island. In this role he was charged with aligning his drawings to Baum’s texts, which in several notable instances included depicting their latent or blatant queerness. Following Baum’s death, Neill penned four books in the Oz series—The Wonder City of Oz, The Scalawagons of Oz, Lucky Bucky in Oz, and The Runaway in Oz—and these novels demonstrate his efforts to maintain continuity with the series while refreshing it for new readers decades after Baum’s death. Throughout his roughly forty years of illustrating Oz, Neill contributed his unique sense of its wonders and erotic subtexts to complement Baum’s, both by harmonizing texts and images, as well as by adumbrating their frequent engagement with queer themes.