Complete and unabridged, with 52 full-page plates by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Odilon Redon and John Atkinson Grimshaw. How a foundling raised by wood nymphs in the Forest of Burzee came to make the first toy, drive the first sleigh, and be granted immortality by the immortals so that his work would not stop. Baum wrote a full mythology for a figure who had none, complete with a childhood, enemies and a council of the Fairies. It is the only Christmas book that treats Santa Claus as a man who had to learn his trade. Fifty-two plates of forest silence, rocky hill country and mountain lakes, with paintings by Böcklin and Redon, conjure the wild, enchanted world Baum's wood nymphs inhabit.