Dave Fischer Weblog

In L Frank Baum's 1917 book The Lost Princess of Oz, the group of heroes (clockwise from top: Button Bright, Dorothy, Betsy Bobbin, Trot, The Wizard of Oz, Scraps, The Frogman, Cayke, The Cowardly Lion, The Sawhorse, Toto, The Woozy, The Little Pink Bear, and The Bear King) use a magic wand to view Ugu The Shoemaker. But Ugu (with long feather in cap) is at the same moment watching them via Ozma's Magic Picture, so their view contains his view of their view, etc.

The result is an image of video feedback, 39 years before it was first encountered for real in 1956.

Illustration by John R Neill.

Magical Feedback of Oz