Biography of the author lemony snicket

Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN Bloomsbury Publishing. PEN American Center. November 15, Retrieved February 6, Retrieved June 5, Poetry Foundation. June 5, The Hollywood Reporter. November 5, A Series of Unfortunate Events. Retrieved Deseret News. January 16, The Atlantic. September 25, The Boston Globe. OnStage Blog. Retrieved May 25, The Daily Californian.

October 12, December 16, Archived from the original on December 8, Retrieved April 7, Retrieved April 5, Retrieved March 1, Retrieved May 18, April 9, Archived from the original on July 23, Retrieved November 21, The Jewish Daily Forward. Retrieved November 30, The Washington Post. The Huffington Post. Associated Press. November 29, Retrieved March 13, February 21, Pacific Standard.

Archived from the original on March 2, The Daily Telegraph. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence.

If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new. How did you start writing A Series of Unfortunate Events? For various personal and biography of the author lemony snicket reasons, I began researching the terrible things that happened to the three Baudelaire children following the death of their parents.

The good people at HarperCollins offered to publish my findings, both as cautionary tales and for the general good. Did your own childhood inspire aspects or events in your books? What happened to me in my childhood in no way resembles what has happened to the Baudelaire orphans. When I was very young, however, I was taught the power of the written word and the importance of exposing evil wherever I found it, which are two of my highest guiding principles.

What were some of your hobbies as a child? Taxidermy and playing the harpsichord. How do young people respond to your books? People, young and old, have responded to my books with a mixture of shock Philip Ardagh. Philip 'Beardy' Ardagh is the award-winning author of the Eddie Dickens adventures, currently available in over 30 languages.

If you enjoyed: The Carnivorous Carnival. Try: Dreadful Acts by Philip Ardagh. The Count, of course, makes reprise appearances in each successive volume, much to the delight of the legion of young readers these books have attracted. The trio of kids is led by inventive fourteen-year-old Violet, her rather bookish brother, twelve-year-old Klaus, and baby Sunny who has incredibly sharp teeth for an infant and employs a baby argot that speaks volumes.

And all of this is related in a deadpan, sophisticated text that has its tongue firmly planted in cheek. Susan Rich, editor at HarperTrophy and a fan of Handler's first novel, decided to try and woo him over to children's books. Handler, writing as Snicket—a name he had once devised to avoid getting on unwanted mail lists—was delighted to revamp the entire notion of what constitutes an appropriate novel for juveniles, repealing the old sports or fantasy categories that were available to him as a youth.

In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle…. I'm sorry to tell you this, but that's how the story goes. When the three Baudelaire children lose their parents in a fire, they become—through the oversight of the ineffectual banker, Mr. Poe—wards of Count Olaf, a distant cousin.

He sets them to labor in his house, meanwhile devising schemes with his theatrical troupe to deprive the orphans of their inheritance. The three survive the Count's attacks with spunk, initiative, and, in the case of Sunny, a set of sharp teeth. The same reviewer felt that the author "paints the satire with such broad strokes that most readers will view it from a safe distance.

Unfortunately, their safe haven is short-lived, spoiled once again by the arrival of the oafish Count Olaf. Susan Dove Lempke, reviewing the first two titles in Booklistthought that the "droll humor, reminiscent of Edward Gorey's, will be lost on some children; others may not enjoy the old-fashioned storytelling style that frequently addresses the reader directly and includes definitions of terms.

The third book in the series, The Wide Windowfinds the orphans with elderly Aunt Josephine who lives on a house on stilts which overlooks Lake Lachrymose. Josephine is a widow as well as a frightful grammarian, and when Olaf finally tracks down the Baudelaires, he fools the aunt for a while into believing he is a sailboat captain. When she finally stumbles onto his true identity, he gets rid of her by pushing the good woman into leech-infested waters and the peripatetic children must find a new protector.

Booklist 's Lempke noted that Snicket writes in "an old-fashioned tone," offering "plenty advice to readers in asides. Most importantly, as Lempke concluded, "readers never truly worry that [the Baudelaire orphans] will be defeated in this or their next adventure. The fourth in the series, The Miserable Millbegins with the three children on their way to Paltryville and yet another guardian, this time the owner of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill.

Here they must work in the mill, survive on gum for lunch and casserole for dinner. Count Olaf, is of course, just off-stage ready to pounce. Pearce in School Library Journal. Pearce noted that such humor "exaggerates the sour and makes anyone's real life seem sweet in comparison. In the former title, the Baudelaire children are consigned to a shack at the Prufrock Preparatory School where they will face snapping crabs, strict punishments, dripping fungus and the evils of the metric system.

In the latter book, they must contend with new guardians Jerome and Esme Squalor, while trying to save two friends from the biographies of the author lemony snicket of Count Olaf. The Grim Grottothe next chapter in the Baudelaire children's story, is as "cheerful" as "death, alopecia, and crabgrass," according to Alynda Wheat of Entertainment Weekly.

This time the orphans team up with Captain Widdershins, commander of the submarine Queequegand his stepdaughter Fiona, in their quest to find a magical sugar bowl while evading the everpresent Count Olaf and a patch of poisonous mushrooms. Their underwater adventure is augmented by mechanical monsters and the tap-dancing Carmelita Spats. In an interview with Malcolm Jones in NewsweekSnicket said that part of the reason the Baudelaire children have become so popular is because they are "heroes in which every reader could imagine themselves….

Working from a tradition of Gothic storytelling, I find that the external drama and melodrama are just more interesting than interior landscape. Poe and Prufrock Prep. And the literary names are there mostly because I look forward to kids growing up and finding Baudelaire in the poetry anthology and having that be something else to be excited about.

More thanof the books in "A Series of Unfortunate Events" are in print, the Snicket Web site is a popular venue in cyberspace, and the elusive Mr. Snicket himself has become a popular speaker at schools. Snicket's representative, Mr. Handler, performs standins for his friend, who has variously been injured or delayed or unaccountably held hostage somewhere while Mr.

Handler entertains the youthful audience with his accordion and tales of the Snicket family tree. According to the official Snicket Web site, "Lemony Snicket was born before you were and is likely to die before you as well. Lodge wrote in Publishers Weekly that obviously "the author's knack for combining the dark with the droll has hit a nerve just about everywhere," and word-of-mouth has greatly contributed to the success of the series.

Boys' LifeDecember,Stephen G. Michaud, review of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" titles, p. Pearce, review of The Miserable Millp. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 8, Retrieved January 08, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.

Education: Wesleyan University, graduated, Home— San FranciscoCA. Author, poet, and "studied expert in rhetorical analysis. The "A Series of Unfortunate Events" books were adapted for audiobook. Daniel Handler is the author of the wildly popular "A Series of Unfortunate Events" books penned under the pseudonym of Lemony Snicket. The thirteen-volume series, which features the grim misadventures of the orphaned Baudelaire children, tapped into a youthful readership eager to deal with irony, intelligent silliness, and Goth-like depressing situations in their fiction.

Growing up, he was "a bright and obvious person," as he characterized himself for Sally Lodge in Publishers Weekly. Eleven years later, he would set his first novel at Roewer High, a barely concealed stand-in for this school, wherein students were "pushed to the limit academically, socially and athletically," as Handler wrote. Upon graduation, an Olin fellowship provided him with the financial support to work on his first novel.

Handler spent a couple of years in the mids writing comedy sketches for a nationally syndicated radio show based in San Francisco, The House of Blues Radio Hour. Things began looking up for Handler when he moved to New York City and began his literary career as a freelance movie and book critic. Byhis first novel, The Basic Eight, was finally published and earned respectful if not praiseworthy reviews.

The Basic Eight, though written for adults, caused some reviewers and booksellers to label it "YA" because it focuses on a cast of high-school students in a clique called The Basic Eight. The Basic Eight, which deals with a teenage murder, hit bookstore shelves a month before the tragic events at Colorado's Columbine High School focused the nation's attention on teen violence.

The tale is narrated by Flannery Culp, who recounts the events of her senior year at Roewer High from her prison cell where she is serving time for the murder of a teacher and fellow student. Flan is, as a reviewer for Publishers Weekly observed, "precocious" and "pretentious. At school, Flan, editor of the student paper but having trouble in calculus, relies on her seven friends—"Queen Bee" Kate, lovely Natasha, chef-in-the-making Gabriel, absinthe-fan Douglas, Jennifer Rose Milton, and V, the last whose name has been changed to provide anonymity to her wealthy family.

These eight form the elitist Basic Eight. Childhood games turn serious when the group begins experimenting with absinthe; Natasha comes to Flan's rescue by poisoning a biology teacher who has been plaguing her friend. The talk-show circuit quickly picks up on the story, calling these privileged kids a Satanic cult. Handler's characters ape the adult world of their parents by throwing dinner parties and toting around hip flasks.

Also with mixed praise, a New Yorker critic wrote that while "Handler is a charming writer with a lovely mastery of voice," The Basic Eight "is weakened by his attempt to turn a clever idea into a social satire. For his second novel, Watch Your Mouth, Handler chose another coming-of-age crucible: the college years. A surfeit of sex has caused Joseph to fall behind in his studies and earn an "incomplete" in one class.

There the two will work days as Jewish day-camp counselors, Joseph will finish his classwork, and their nights will be their own. Once settled in the Glasses' home, however, Joseph is filled with an unsettled foreboding. It seems that father Ben pines too much for his daughter, Cyn; that mother Mimi yearns too much for her son, Stephen; and that Stephen may return his mother's feelings.

Written in the form of an opera, Watch Your Mouth employs realism and surrealism side by side, and steps perilously close to the bounds of good taste, according to some reviewers. A Publishers Weekly reviewer felt that Handler's second novel is so "twisted that even its protagonist can't keep up with the perverse turns of plot. The birth of Lemony Snicket came about when Handler was offered the chance to pen books he might have enjoyed reading himself when he was ten.

Taking up the Snicket moniker, a name he had once devised to avoid getting on unwanted mail lists, he was delighted to revamp the entire notion of what constitutes an appropriate novel for juveniles, repealing the old sports or fantasy categories that were available to him as a youth. The result was The Bad Beginning, the first of thirteen volumes chronicling the adventures of the Baudelaire orphans.

As the "A Series of Unfortunate Events" books unfold, siblings Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire not only lose their parents, but they are then set upon by the vile Count Olaf, whose one goal in life, it seems, is to bilk the children out of their fortune.

Biography of the author lemony snicket

The Baudelaire brood is led by inventive fourteen-year-old Violet, while her rather bookish brother, twelve-year-old Klaus, follows her lead. Then there is baby Sunny, who has incredibly sharp teeth for an infant and employs a baby argot that speaks volumes. Eschewing magic, Handler imbues these children with survival skills of a more practical nature, enabling them to defend themselves from a cornucopia of hurled knives, falling lamps, storms, snakes, leeches, and just plain rotten folks.

This section describes a work or element of fiction in a primarily in-universe style. Please help rewrite it to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective. April Learn how and when to remove this message. As pen name [ edit ]. Main article: Lemony Snicket bibliography. References [ edit ]. The Atlantic.

Retrieved March 18, The Christian Science Monitor. October 19, ISSN The Guardian. Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved March 19, November 24, Crossover Fiction: Global and Historical Perspectives. ISBN The Hollywood Reporter. March 14, The Independent. December 19, November 16, The Boston Globe.