Fictional desert
| Deadly Desert |
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 The official map of Oz and surrounding deserts |
| Created by | L. Frank Baum |
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| Genre | Children's books |
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| Other name(s) | Shifting Sands, Great Sandy Waste, Impassable Desert |
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| Type | Magical desert |
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The Deadly Desert is the magical desert in Nonestica that completely surrounds the fictional Land of Oz, which cuts it off from the rest of the world.[1]
Geology
On the map of Oz, first published in the endpapers of the eighth book, Tik-Tok of Oz (1914), the eastern quadrant of the desert is called the Deadly Desert, while the other three quadrants of desert are called the Shifting Sands, the Impassable Desert, and the Great Sandy Waste.[1]
The desert was originally described as dangerous as any natural desert but no more. Indeed, in the second book, The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904), the witch Mombi tries to escape through it in the form of a griffin, and Glinda chases her over the sands. In the third book, Ozma of Oz (1907), it has become a magical desert with life-destroying sands and noxious fumes, a feature that remained constant through the rest of the series.[2]
In the fifth book, The Road to Oz (1909), a sign is posted on the edge of the desert to warn travelers:
ALL PERSONS ARE WARNED NOT TO VENTURE UPON THIS DESERT
For the Deadly Sands Will Turn Any Living Flesh to Dust in an Instant.
Beyond This Barrier is the
LAND OF OZ
But no one can Reach that Beautiful Country because of these Destroying Sands.
The desert is used as a literary device to explain why Oz is essentially cut off from the rest of the world and the rest of the surrounding countries of Nonestica. However, it has been crossed several times by people from within Oz and from the outside world, with applied ingenuity, with magical assistance, or through unusual natural phenomena. In fact, no one in the Oz series is ever seen to die in the desert.[3]
