Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Everett Collection (Walt Disney Pictures, Buena Vista), Universal Pictures L. Frank Baum had been an actor, theater manager, frontier store owner, newspaperman, traveling salesman, and editor of a magazine about shop-window decorations before publishing a collection of stories based on Mother Goose rhymes at age 41 in 1897. It sold pretty well, as did his follow-ups, but it took a few more years before Baum wrote the book that made his name. Published in