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Peanuts Coronet #48
You've Come a Long Way, Snoopy
Another collection of cartoons featuring America's funniest kids -- Peanuts!
128 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1971
About the author
Charles M. Schulz
3,034 books1,654 followersCharles Monroe Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.
Schulz's first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys and one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to The Saturday Evening Post; the first of 17 single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. In 1948, Schulz tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January, 1950.
Later that year, Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game (1957–1959), but he abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a single-panel strip ("Young Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God.
Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years, almost without interruption; during the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997. At its peak, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. Schulz stated that his routine every morning consisted of eating a jelly donut and sitting down to write the day's strip. After coming up with an idea (which he said could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours), he began drawing it, which took about an hour for dailies and three hours for Sunday strips. He stubbornly refused to hire an inker or letterer, saying that "it would be equivalent to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts for him." In November 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999.
Schulz often touched on religious themes in his work, including the classic television cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which features the character Linus van Pelt quoting the King James Version of the Bible Luke 2:8-14 to explain "what Christmas is all about." In personal interviews Schulz mentioned that Linus represented his spiritual side. Schulz, reared in the Lutheran faith, had been active in the Church of God as a young adult and then later taught Sunday school at a United Methodist Church. In the 1960s, Robert L. Short interpreted certain themes and conversations in Peanuts as being consistent with parts of Christian theology, and used them as illustrations during his lectures about the gospel, as he explained in his bestselling paperback book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, the first of several books he wrote on religion and Peanuts, and other popular culture items. From the late 1980s, however, Schulz described himself in interviews as a "secular humanist": “I do not go to church anymore... I guess you might say I've come around to secular humanism, an obligation I believe all humans have to others and the world we live in.”
Schulz's first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys and one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to The Saturday Evening Post; the first of 17 single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. In 1948, Schulz tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January, 1950.
Later that year, Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game (1957–1959), but he abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a single-panel strip ("Young Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God.
Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years, almost without interruption; during the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997. At its peak, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. Schulz stated that his routine every morning consisted of eating a jelly donut and sitting down to write the day's strip. After coming up with an idea (which he said could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours), he began drawing it, which took about an hour for dailies and three hours for Sunday strips. He stubbornly refused to hire an inker or letterer, saying that "it would be equivalent to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts for him." In November 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999.
Schulz often touched on religious themes in his work, including the classic television cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which features the character Linus van Pelt quoting the King James Version of the Bible Luke 2:8-14 to explain "what Christmas is all about." In personal interviews Schulz mentioned that Linus represented his spiritual side. Schulz, reared in the Lutheran faith, had been active in the Church of God as a young adult and then later taught Sunday school at a United Methodist Church. In the 1960s, Robert L. Short interpreted certain themes and conversations in Peanuts as being consistent with parts of Christian theology, and used them as illustrations during his lectures about the gospel, as he explained in his bestselling paperback book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, the first of several books he wrote on religion and Peanuts, and other popular culture items. From the late 1980s, however, Schulz described himself in interviews as a "secular humanist": “I do not go to church anymore... I guess you might say I've come around to secular humanism, an obligation I believe all humans have to others and the world we live in.”
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 11, 2009
One of those books I can remember reading over and over again as a kid.
November 28, 2018
A nice, simple collection of a sweet comic with fun characters.
November 24, 2012
This book is absolutely adorable. Anytime you can invite the Peanuts gang to come play in the classroom is going to be a great day. This story is about Snoopy reaching a milestone as far as his changes. It is a great story to teach children about changing their attitude and behavior for the better.
December 24, 2008
Another great collection from the Peanuts creator. If you enjoy humor, then this book is for you.
December 11, 2022
Trying to hit my 2022 reading goal!!!
Peppermint Patty is indeed a rare gem. I won't have known how sweet she is with her father if I didn't read this charming little collection. :) She's my favorite character.
Snoopy gets away with a lot of things. Thank goodness he's a cute beagle because he would be absolutely infuriating if he's a human being. He's stubborn, a sore loser, somewhat of a chauvinist (?!) and good at nearly everything he tries. But we love him anyway.
This collection has so many great classics. A worthwhile read for any Peanuts fan.
Peppermint Patty is indeed a rare gem. I won't have known how sweet she is with her father if I didn't read this charming little collection. :) She's my favorite character.
Snoopy gets away with a lot of things. Thank goodness he's a cute beagle because he would be absolutely infuriating if he's a human being. He's stubborn, a sore loser, somewhat of a chauvinist (?!) and good at nearly everything he tries. But we love him anyway.
This collection has so many great classics. A worthwhile read for any Peanuts fan.
March 13, 2020
This one has the section where Snoopy finally learns Woodstock's name and Woodstock becomes a more integral character to the story. Charlie Brown consults the Doctor heavily in this book. Peppermint Patty is convinced that Chuck has a crush on her. Sally is wily in school and is adept at dodging questions.
September 15, 2025
Growing up in the 60s and 70s, Peanuts had the comic characters I most identified with. I picked this copy up at a book sale yesterday and found the characters' psychology and deadpan reflections still make me laugh.
March 16, 2026
As good as ever. Love these little bits of magic.
November 29, 2021
Book 48 of the Coronet run, this wonderful collection is taken from “Thompson Is In Trouble, Charlie Brown vol. 1” (no, doesn’t make any sense to me either), published in 1976 (I have the 1977 Coronet edition) and features strips from 1972 and 1973. Hugely enjoyable, my highlights include Woodstock falling into Snoopy’s kennel, the best Summer Camp ever, “Things I’ve Learned After It Was Too Late”, wound a little too tight, Linus and Snoopy in a tree, Lucy’s “it’s hard work being bitter”, no shoulder, “all the good titles are taken” and sleeping in the back of the car. After the last volume, I’m more than ever convinced it was this era of book - published in the late seventies with strips from earlier - that I fell in love with and I really enjoyed this. With minimal Peppermint Patty and plenty of Lucy and Charlie Brown, there’s a great mixture this time of humour (some of it very funny indeed) and melancholy, as well as Snoopy and Woodstock doing their stuff. Another winner, I would highly recommend it.
December 29, 2020
Much of the content of this book of cartoons can be summed up in the dialog of the last image of the first page. It is, “No book on psychology can be any good if one can understand it!” This thought can be applied to a great deal of professional writing. The usual cast of characters of the Peanuts comic strip are present and their problems are their normal ones.
Charlie Brown’s baseball team is still losing all their games, sometimes for odd reasons. The relationships are all what they have been, yet the consistency is not boring. There is always enough variation to keep the strip interesting.
In the Peanuts strip, the problems of youth that we all had are paramount. For most of us, the same issues, such as approaching a person of the opposite gender, remains throughout our entire life. Even though the characters have problems, reading a book like this always lifts your spirits.
Charlie Brown’s baseball team is still losing all their games, sometimes for odd reasons. The relationships are all what they have been, yet the consistency is not boring. There is always enough variation to keep the strip interesting.
In the Peanuts strip, the problems of youth that we all had are paramount. For most of us, the same issues, such as approaching a person of the opposite gender, remains throughout our entire life. Even though the characters have problems, reading a book like this always lifts your spirits.
October 28, 2023
I have a 1978 printing of this book, featuring strips from the early 1970s. High drama in this one! Peppermint Patty confronts the little girl with the red hair, her feelings for Charlie Brown, and her insecurities. Elsewhere, Lucy gets kicked off the baseball team. And Rerun is introduced if not actually shown. A really good compilation this one.
November 18, 2008
I love Charles M. Schulz. This is another of his classics.
January 26, 2016
Wonderful! Full of Schulz's philosophical musings through the Peanuts characters, with an especially touching strip of Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty discussing childhood insecurity.
March 27, 2014
I love Peanuts. Always have, always will. This was a great Goodwill find.
July 17, 2016
my nephew will love this. Charlie Brown gets kicked out of camp, snoopy writes, snoopy plays football with Woodstock, and Charlie Brown gets a little brother.
August 21, 2019
😍 disfruto tanto estos comics!!!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews