Happiness is a Warm Puppy by Charles M. Schulz, First Edition, Second Issue in Original Dust Jacket, 1962

Schultz, Charles M. Happiness Is a Warm Puppy. San Francisco: Determined Productions Inc., 1962. First edition, second printing. Small square format. Original pictorial boards featuring Snoopy and Lucy on front. In the original illustrated dust jacket. Illustrated throughout. 

Presented is a first edition, second printing of Happiness Is a Warm Puppy. This is the first book in this series of square-shaped Peanuts books, written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz and published by Determined Productions Inc. in 1962. The book is in its original vividly-colored pink and black boards and original dust jacket, with vibrant multi-colored pages. True to its title, the book features a collection of "Happiness is..." sayings, culminating in the truism “Happiness is one thing to one person and another thing to another.” The sayings are paired with charming illustrations of all of the Peanuts characters. The book spent 45 weeks on The New York Times Best Sellers list, was the fifth most purchased book of 1962, and by 1967, it had sold over one million copies throughout the world. 

Before 1962, Schulz's Peanuts books had been collections of previously published strips. ⁠Encouraged by marketing expert Connie Boucher, Schultz wrote and drew this book of original illustrations and text in one day in 1961. He centered the book around the iconic phrase, “Happiness is a warm puppy,” which first debuted in a Peanuts comic strip published on April 25, 1960.

“Booksellers had never sold a hardcover quite like the offering that Determined Productions (itself a new and rather different voice in publishing) shipped to stores in November 1962, only weeks after the United States and the Soviet Union had come to the brink of thermonuclear war. The Cuban missile crisis had just died down, and people were again remembering to shave, when Schulz's small, square volume… arrived in bookshops accompanied by a letter that closed, ‘It won't change the world, but we hope it will make things a little more pleasant for us survivors.’ Peanuts offered no solutions to the world's problems…neither did Schulz's strip depict, or seek to depict, any final overcoming of life's anguishes. In Happiness Is a Warm Puppy, the familiar Peanuts troupe served only to illustrate, as Schulz explained it, the ‘little moments you remember when you stop and think back over your life.’” (Michaelis, Schulz and Peanuts, 338-339). 

Due to its success, Happiness Is a Warm Puppy was followed by five more small, square-format Peanuts books: Security is a Thumb and a Blanket, I Need All the Friends I Can Get, Love is Walking Hand in Hand, Christmas is Together-Time, and Home is on Top of a Dog House. This is an appealing first edition of one of Schulz’s most memorable Peanuts collections. 

CONDITION:
First edition, second printing. Small square format. Near fine condition. Original boards, hot pink and black Lucy and Snoopy to front, black book title to spine, white back. Back board with scattered light brown stains, some surface dirt. Very minimal bumping to spine. Hot pink front endpapers, orange back endpapers. Various colored pages, with black text. Colors are still vibrant. Pages clean, small wear along top corner of text block. Unpaginated. 

Near fine dust jacket. Hot pink, black, and white illustrated dust jacket, back panel with photograph of Shutz, “Photograph by Karel Bauer” at top right corner. One small tear at top right corner of back panel, light wear on back panel, front panel with a small chip missing from white border at top left. Spine with sun toning. Interior fold with biography of Charles M. Schulz. Jacket wrapped in mylar. 

Book Dimensions:  5 3/4" H x 5 3/4" W x 3/4" D

REF: David Michaelis, Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 338–39.

Accompanied by our company's letter of authenticity.