# Michael Patrick Hearn > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Michael_Patrick_Hearn > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Michael_Patrick_Hearn.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Patrick_Hearn > Source revision: 1347646205 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) American literary critic **Michael Patrick Hearn** is an American literary scholar as well as a man of letters specializing in children's literature and its illustration. His works include *[The Annotated Wizard of Oz](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Annotated_Wizard_of_Oz&action=edit&redlink=1)* (1973/2000), *[The Annotated Christmas Carol](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Annotated_Christmas_Carol&action=edit&redlink=1)* (1977/2003), and *[The Annotated Huckleberry Finn](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Annotated_Huckleberry_Finn&action=edit&redlink=1)* (2001). He considers the three most quintessential American novels to be *[Moby-Dick](/source/Moby-Dick)* by [Herman Melville](/source/Herman_Melville), *[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz](/source/The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz)* by [L. Frank Baum](/source/L._Frank_Baum), and *[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn](/source/The_Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn)* by [Mark Twain](/source/Mark_Twain).[1] He is an expert on L. Frank Baum and is currently writing a biography about him, which sets forth to correct the numerous errors in previous biographies, many based on [Frank Joslyn Baum](/source/Frank_Joslyn_Baum)'s out of print and largely mythological *[To Please a Child](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=To_Please_a_Child&action=edit&redlink=1)*. As an Oz and L. Frank Baum scholar, he also edited *The Critical Heritage Edition of the Wizard of Oz* for [Schocken Books](/source/Schocken_Books) (1986), wrote the introduction to the first published version of the screenplay of *[The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)](/source/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film))*. He appears in the documentaries *Oz: the American Fairyland* and *[Matilda Joslyn Gage](/source/Matilda_Joslyn_Gage)* (1983), credited as an "Authority on L. Frank Baum". He gave the keynote address at the [Centennial](/source/Centennial) [convention](/source/Convention_(meeting)) of *[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz](/source/The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz)* mounted by [The International Wizard of Oz Club](/source/The_International_Wizard_of_Oz_Club), and often makes public appearances in which he lectures on Baum. Hearn was a student at [Hamilton College](/source/Hamilton_College) in 1968-69 and then transferred to [Bard College](/source/Bard_College), where he graduated in 1972. At Hamilton, he was encouraged to become an author by one of his professors, [Alex Haley](/source/Alex_Haley).[2] His first book, *The Annotated Wizard of Oz*, was completed when he was a student at Bard. ## Selected works Other books as author or editor include: - *50 years of [Wanda Gág](/source/Wanda_G%C3%A1g)'s [Millions of Cats](/source/Millions_of_Cats): 1928-1978* (1978) - *McLoughlin Brothers, publishers, 1828-1978* (1980) - *Victorian Fairy Tales* (1980) - *[Peter Newell](/source/Peter_Newell), American Comic Illustrator* (1983) - *The Chocolate Book: A Sampler for Boys and Girls* (1983) - *The Best of the Andrew Lang Fairy Tale Book* (1986) - *[The Porcelain Cat](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Porcelain_Cat&action=edit&redlink=1)* (children's picture book, 1987) - *[The Wizard of Oz](/source/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film)): The Screenplay*, (1989) - *[W.W. Denslow](/source/W.W._Denslow): The Other Wizard of Oz*, (1996) - *The Victorian Fairy Tale Book* (1990) - *65 years of Wanda Gág's Millions of Cats: 1928-1993* (1992) - *Native American Legends : Lakota* (1995) - *Myth, Magic, and Mystery: One Hundred Years of American Children's Book Illustration* (1996) - *From the Silver Age to Stalin: Russian Children's Book Illustration* In preparation, (2008) He has also written articles for *[Horn Book](/source/The_Horn_Book_Magazine)* and *[The Baum Bugle](/source/The_Baum_Bugle)* and Liner Notes for Caedmon Records. ## References This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. Find sources: "Michael Patrick Hearn" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message) 1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** *Oz: The American Fairyland* documentary by Gayle O'Neal and Leonard A. Swann, Jr., 1997 1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** [source re Haley and Hamilton: Hearn, “A Writer’s Roots”, NY Times Book Review, p. 1 (Dec. 19, 2021); source re Bard: items in www.annandaleonline.org] ## External links - [Children's literature portal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Children%27s_literature) - [Michael Patrick Hearn](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0372506/) at [IMDb](/source/IMDb_(identifier)) - [Michael Patrick Hearn](https://lccn.loc.gov/n79042157) at the [Library of Congress](/source/Library_of_Congress), with 24 library catalog records Authority control databases International ISNI VIAF GND FAST WorldCat National United States France BnF data Netherlands Korea Israel Catalonia People DDB Other IdRef Yale LUX --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Michael Patrick Hearn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Patrick_Hearn) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Patrick_Hearn?action=history)). 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