I’ve always liked the Peanuts Philosophers books, a series of small hardbacks published by Hallmark in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Each focuses on one character, running eleven strips where that character espouses some bit of philosophy on some topic. The strips are run borderless, one panel per page. The books were originally sold singly and in boxed sets of four, and the first set was also offered in the US in French, Spanish, and Latin. So they’re cool books, and they are a fun thing to chase after for those who collect.

Running Press has now issued a reprint of the first set of four in a box. It’s not a facsimile edition – it has a new cover design, a new box design, some changes to the interior (not the pages with the strips, but with changes like adding a copyright page and dropping the page-number-less contents page that was at the front of each volume.) But the biggest change is small – as in the new books are much smaller than the old ones. The old ones were about the size of an index card, the new ones are closer to a business card, with each page less than half the square inches of the old edition.  So for those of you who were totally in love with the old edition, you might be a little disappointed, but these are cute little books and should make a fine item to stuff an Easter stocking, either as one gift of a boxed set or broken down into gifts for four folks.

The main AAUGH.com scanning-and-uploading computer is in the shop at the moment, otherwise I’d provide a shot to show the size comparison. Maybe I’ll do that when my machine comes home, where it is missed.

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