The Wizard of the Emerald City The Wizard of the Emerald City The Wizard of the Emerald City () is a 1939 children's novel by Russian writer Alexander Melentyevich Volkov. The book is a re-narration of L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". Baum's name is sometimes credited in the book (in the appendix by Volkov, which is found in some editions, where Volkov describes the origins of his book). The names of most characters are changed, some elements of Baum's novel are removed, and some new elements are added. The book was illustrated by Leonid Vladimirski in 1959 and became quite popular in the
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1986 TV series) and has been dubbed in English, Spanish, Italian and numerous other languages. Aside from having the same source material, this TV series bears no relation to the 1982 anime film directed by Fumihiko Takayama and produced by Yoshimitsu Banno for Toho, though both works share the same title in Japanese. However, since the 1982 film was not released in Japan until 1986—the same year in which the TV series was first broadcast—the two productions are often confused. "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is split into four distinct parts, or story arcs, each loosely based on different Oz books originally written