In the classic children’s story, ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ by L. Frank Baum, what is the lion lacking?

The classic children’s story ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ by American author L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) was published in 1900. It is one of his many well known children’s books. There are a total of 14 novels in the Oz series, plus Baum was a prolific writer composing 41 other novels, 83 short stories and over 200 poems. His first Oz book became a landmark of 20th-century cinema.

Dorothy is the main character who lives on a farm in Kansas, an agricultural state in the US. She is caught up in a cyclone that deposits her and her dog Toto in Munchkin Country in the magical Land of Oz. Quickly she learns that the only way she can return home is to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City and ask the great and powerful Wizard of Oz to help her.

On her way down the yellow brick road she frees a Scarecrow from the pole on which he is hanging, applies oil from a can to the rusted joints of a Tin Woodman and meets a cowardly Lion. The Scarecrow wants a brain, the Tin Woodman want a heart and the cowardly Lion wants courage- so Dorothy encourages them to journey with her and Toto to the Emerald City.

Eventually they meet the Wizard of Oz and her three friends each acquire their desired characteristic or item. Dorothy makes it home, back to her farm in Kansas.

The story has become an established part of multiple cultures spreading from its early young American readership to becoming known throughout the world.