These are the third and fourth volumes of
The Complete Peanuts, and they are surely a treat.

I had a pretty sizeable collection of Peanuts paperbacks once upon a
time, one or two which were bought just for me (the one I remember in
particular was a green book with an angry kite chasing Charlie Brown
on the cover–I don’t remember the title) and a whole bunch I inherited
from my siblings. As near as I can tell the set spanned the period from
maybe 1952 or 1953 until probably 1960 or so. Friends of the family had
a book or two that covered the earliest strips.

Thus, I was on familiar ground in these two books, and was delighted to
renew my acquaintance with many an old favorite.

One of my joys in reading old comic strips is watching the strip and the
characters as they develop. At the beginning of this pair of books, the
classic cast is pretty well complete: Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus,
Schroeder, Pigpen, Shermie, and Violet are all here, all recognizeably
themselves, all drawn just as you’d expect them to be drawn. Sally
hasn’t been born yet.

But Snoopy–these are the books where Snoopy really begins to come
together. In these books, Snoopy first dances, first tries to sleep
on top of his dog house (with mixed results), first kisses Lucy on the
nose, first begins to exercise his imagination. At the end of 1958, he’s
still not drawn quite like the iconic Snoopy of today, but he’s getting
closer.

I can’t wait for the next volume.