The Complete Peanuts 1955-1958: Vols. 3 & 4 Gift Box Set - Paperback

The Complete Peanuts 1955-1958: Vols. 3 & 4 Gift Box Set - Paperback

The second in an annual series of two-volume boxed sets (1955-1956 and 1957-1958). This gift box set collects the paperback editions of third volume and fourth volumes in the best-selling and acclaimed series, taking us from the mid- to late 1950s as Linus learns to talk and becomes even more dependent on his security blanket, Snoopy begins to explore his eccentricities, Lucy’s unrequited crush on Schroeder takes final shape, and Charlie Brown becomes… well, even more Charlie Brown-ish! With introductions by Matt Groening ( The Simpsons ) and Jonathan Franzen ( The Corrections ). Black & white illustrations throughout Charles M. Schulz  was born November 25, 1922, in Minneapolis. His destiny was foreshadowed when an uncle gave him, at the age of two days, the nickname Sparky (after the racehorse Spark Plug in the newspaper strip  Barney Google ). His ambition from a young age was to be a cartoonist and his first success was selling 17 cartoons to the  Saturday Evening Post  between 1948 and 1950. He also sold a weekly comic feature called  Li'l Folks  to the local  St. Paul Pioneer Press . After writing and drawing the feature for two years, Schulz asked for a better location in the paper or for daily exposure, as well as a raise. When he was turned down on all three counts, he quit. He started submitting strips to the newspaper syndicates and in the spring of 1950, United Feature Syndicate expressed interest in  Li'l Folks . They bought the strip, renaming it Peanuts , a title Schulz always loathed. The first  Peanuts  daily appeared October 2, 1950; the first Sunday, January 6, 1952. Diagnosed with cancer, Schulz retired from Peanuts at the end of 1999. He died on February 13, 2000, the day before Valentine's Day-and the day before his last strip was published, having completed 17,897 daily and Sunday strips, each and every one fully written, drawn, and lettered entirely by his own hand ― an unmatched achievement in comics.  Matt Groening (b. 1954) is an Emmy Award-winner, best known for co-creating animated TV series such as The Simpsons  and Futurama . He also created the long-running alt-weekly strip Life In Hell  for which he won a Reuben Award (2002) by the National Cartoonist Society. Jonathan Franzen is a National Book Award and James Tait Black Memorial Prize winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist, and was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.