Billy in Bunbury

A deliciously strange artifact from 1924, this poem-recipe hybrid was written by Ruth Plumly Thompson, the prolific Oz author, but published without her name, as pure branded content for the Royal Baking Powder Company. Little Billy won't eat, so his frantic mother is delighted when King Hun Bun himself arrives from the magical kingdom of Bunbury to whisk the boy away. The catch: Billy must taste everything in this sweet kingdom before he can return home. Meanwhile, the King leaves Billy's mother with a gift: a recipe book for treats made easy by baking powder. It's a clever bit of early advertising wrapped in genuine Oz whimsy, part fantasy adventure, part sales pitch, entirely of its time. The illustrations by Gertrude Kay add to the charm. For anyone curious about how companies sold products in the 1920s, or for Oz completists who want to trace every corner of Thompson's imagination.