Wndrfl Wrld of Peanuts

by Charles M. Schulz

Book Overview

A rare meeting of literary genius: P. D. James, long among the most admired mystery writers of our time, draws the characters of Jane Austen’s beloved novel Pride and Prejudice into a tale of murder... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0449205517
• ISBN13: 9780449205518
• Release Date: July 1983
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The wonderful world of "Peanuts" from a half-century ago

"The Wonderful World of Peanuts" comprises the first half of "More Peanuts," which reprints daily strips from the period 1952-54. My brother's extensive collection of "Peanuts" paperbacks are all numbered and this one, despite the fact that it does not go back to the very beginning of Charles M. Schulz's beloved comic strip, is numbered "1." It also has a cover price of 40 cents, which is certainly a blast from the past. One of the things that is most interesting about this collection is that while they represent the standard four panel strip that we are so familiar with, the panels are not square but rather twice as long as they are high. In other words the number of panels is the same but the amount of space is twice what we are used to today. I guess the comic pages were a lot different a half century ago when these strips were first published. These are so far back that Snoopy does not talk yet. Actually, he does not look like himself yet, and all of the faces of the "Peanuts" gang look a bit elongated. But if you go back and see the first of the Schulz strips you will discover that already he was on his way at this point to developing the familiar faces of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and the rest. Another interesting thing of these early strips is that you do not have the continuing situations that Schulz would develop down the road, although there are several strips in which Charlie Brown tries his hand at being a cartoonist while Snoopy balances things on his ear a couple of times. Instead Schulz is defining his characters through strips that stand on their own. Lucy becomes the first person to be expelled from nursery school, Schroeder stays home because of a birthday that is not Beethoven's, Linus is learning to stand up on his own, and Snoopy is waiting for his day. But mostly "The Wonderful World of Peanuts" is one in which Charlie Brown is struggling to be perfect. Violet is always getting mad at him and telling him to go home and Patty takes home her half of the snow man they made (right half, of course), but it is Lucy who is clearly going to be the bane of Charlie Brown's existence. She keeps beating him at checkers, gets lonley playing center field, and even whacks him over the head once because she never knows what is good for her. True, she has some problems, such as having to pull a toy duck and trying to impress Charlie Brown with her ability to fly a balloon, but clearly she has the upper hand even in these early strips. Even in these early days it is just so impressive to see what Charles Schulz could do with a round circle, a dash, a loop and two black spots to make us laugh one day and feel for poor ol' Charlie Brown the next. For the second half of these selected cartoons from "More Peanuts" you want to check out "Hey, Peanuts!" These are more strips from the same period, which means the strips are not arranged chronologically.