344 pages; hard cover; black & white

As the 1950s close down, Peanuts definitively enters its golden age. Linus, who had just learned to speak in the previous volume, becomes downright eloquent and even begins to fend off Lucy's bullying, while his security neurosis becomes more pronounced. Charlie Brown cascades further down the hill to loserdom, with spectacularly lost kites and humiliating baseball losses. Pig-Pen, Shermy, Violet, and Patty are also around, as is an increasingly Beethoven-fixated Schroeder. But the rising star is undoubtedly Snoopy. No wonder the beagle is the cover star not only of this volume, but of the collector's slipcase. Introduction by Jonathan Franzen.