I don't own THIS particular Edition, but I will soon, and as soon as I saw it in Dymmocks, I looked through it and thought "I've really gotta get this book!" And this is why . . . .
I'm sure that there are those of you who have the annotated Wizard of Oz and/or the Dover editions of the Wonderful/Wizard of Oz (Dover has made different copies in publishing it in different ways). the Annotated Wizard of Oz may have the pictures in full-colour, but the colour plates are in 1 whole place, in the middle of the book, and that goes the same for the recent Dover Edition of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (where Dorothy is wearing a pink dress, talking to her friends, all wearing the Green glasses). The other Dover editions of this story have the pictures in black-and-white (sometimes all, other times, a few of them) with the colour-plates in their own chapter but in black-and-white.
THIS EDITION - the 100th Anniversary Edition - is one everybody should have. It has all the pictures in colour-and-black lined with the FULL-COLOUR-Plates in their OWN PROPER CHAPTER place, e.g. "She caught Toto by the ear" in THE CYCLONE, "I am the Witch of the North" in THE COUNCIL WITH THE MUNCHKINS, etc. It even has the picture of Dorothy and Toto back in Kansas on the very final page on the book in the backboard. And when you pull off this picture-cover (the one that you see now), the actual cardboard-leather-bound cover has the EXACT SAME ORIGINAL Cover Angela Lansbury shows in "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Making of a Movie Classic", where the Cowardly Lion is wearing the Green glasses on the Front cover, Toto is on the spine and the back has the faces of Dorothy, the Scarecrow and (Nick chopper) the Tin Woodman in circles.
An Important Note on this story is that it Is Imaginative But it Is Not DARK as some people say. It is not scary nor is it supposed to be attempted that way in any new adaptation, nor should it always be made similar to MGM with constant references or musical scenes. This is an AMERICAN 1900 Story, it is not English/British like J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter, Tolkien's Hobbit/LofR or C. S. Lewis' Narnia - it is its own place!! Oz is a place where animals can talk, there are strange animals who are not mythical and never appeared in any other legends, wicked people are defeated by simple acts, by it accidentally-non-magical or magical, everybody is friends and the ordinary items of our world can have strong but simple magic.
Now matter how much the MGM Musical is loved, reading this book is worth it, because it explains how many of the events in Oz came to be when Dorothy arrived: how did the Tin Woodman come to be? How did and why do the Winged Monkeys obey the Wicked Witch of the West? What became of the Winkies after the WWWitch's death? Did Lion become the King of Beasts again? Naturally the musical is different from the book, but despite the change of the Kansas beginning/ending, the story is basically the same. this book only offers MORE than the movie did.
Hope you enjoyed my descriptive review. Watch out for my other Oz and Digimon reviews (by Sam A. Milazzo).