Portal:Lemony Snicket
W I K I P E D I A P O R T A L
Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket (the legal nom de plume of American novelist Daniel Handler) is the author of several children's books, serving as the narrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events (his best known work) and appearing as a character within the series.
As a character, Snicket is a writer hunted by the police and his enemies, the fire-starting side of the secret organization V.F.D. A member of the firefighting component of V.F.D. himself, Snicket meets and falls in love with another member of that group named Beatrice, to whom he becomes engaged. After Snicket is falsely accused of murder and arson, and finally (also falsely) reported dead, Beatrice moves on and marries Bertrand Baudelaire, becoming the mother of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, the protagonists of A Series of Unfortunate Events. After Beatrice is murdered, Snicket embarks on a quest to chronicle the lives of the Baudelaire children until they become old enough to face the troubles of the world on their own.
Snicket is the subject of a fictional autobiography, Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography. Other works by Snicket include The Baby in the Manger, The Composer Is Dead, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid, The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming, and The Lump of Coal. Snicket is currently writing a new children's series. His complete works have collectively sold more than 60 million copies and have been translated into 41 languages.
A Series of Unfortunate Events
A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of gothic children's novels Snicket which follows the turbulent lives of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire after their parents' death in an arsonous house fire. The children are placed in the custody of their uncle Count Olaf, who begins to abuse them and openly plots to embezzle their inheritance. After the Baudelaires are removed from his care by their parents' estate executor, Arthur Poe, Olaf begins to doggedly hunt the children down, bringing about the serial slaughter and holocaust of a multitude of characters.
Since the release of the first novel, The Bad Beginning, the books have gained significant popularity, critical acclaim, and commercial success worldwide, spawning a film, video game, and assorted merchandise. The thirteen books in the series have collectively sold more than 60 million copies and have been translated into 41 languages.
Selected article
American children's author Lemony Snicket signed with Egmont Publishing (UK) in August 2009 and Little, Brown and Company (U.S.) in November 2009 to begin work on a four-part children's series. Although Snicket has switched from his former publisher, HarperCollins, to Little, Brown and Company, he will continue to work with his longtime editor Susan Rich. The first novel is set for release in 2012. In August 2009, it was announced that Egmont Publishing had purchased the rights to a new series by Snicket. By November 2009, Little, Brown and Company had purchased the North American rights to the series. The series will have some overlap with his previous series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, but will not involve its protagonists, the Baudelaire orphans. Daniel Handler, the author behind the Snicket pen name, clarified that the series "is mostly an entirely new story. But if you are a close reader of the series you will see some overlap. There will be something for people who are hungry for that sort of thing." He reiterated: "It does have some overlap with the series, but it's not a continuation." Asked about his progress with the series in January 2010, Handler stated that he was "at the point that it's a twinkle in someone else's eye." He told The Scotsman that the series was "still kind of fetal", and that he would be writing it in 2010. The Times reported he is playing with a plot and title. The only hint to the story's plot provided by Handler was that the series will "approach that question mark from a different angle," a reference to the Great Unknown, a mysterious entity appearing in the final three novels of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Egmont publicist Jessica Dean stated: "If there's such a thing as a secret secret, this is one. He's working on it but it's shrouded in secrecy…He's busy investigating as only he would." Egmont Publishing officially stated, "The new series…at this stage cannot be named (for fear of jeopardising the final stages of Mr Snicket's investigations)."
Did you know…
- …that the phrase "the world is quiet here" is taken from the first line of A. Charles Swinburne's poem "The Garden of Proserpine" (pictured), discussed in the eleventh novel, which begins "Here, where the world is quiet"?
- …that, according to Lemony Snicket, the Baudelaire family is Jewish?
- …that in languages such as Finnish where a distinction is made between maternal and paternal uncles, Uncle Bruce is translated as paternal uncle, which means his surname is "Spats"?
- …that Mr. Poe, who has a congenital cough, is named for American macabre poet Edgar Allan Poe, who, in his short story "The Cask of Amontillado", wrote, "The cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough"?
- …that the 1843 opera The Flying Dutchman concerns a phantom watercraft like the Great Unknown, and that theater critic Frank Granville Barker described the opera as "a voyage into the unknown"?
- …that upon first meeting the Baudelaire orphans, Frank Denouement addresses the children in the Sebald Code?
- …that Edgar and Albert Poe are named after prolific poet Edgar Albert Guest, whom Snicket describes as writing "awkward, tedious poetry on hopelessly sentimental subjects"?
- …that in the French translation, Jerome Squalor is called Jérôme d'Eschemizerre and Justice Strauss Juge Abbott, prompting the later expansions of Jérôme-Salomon d'Eschemizerre and Juge Judith-Sybil Abbott to share the initials "J.S." with Jacques Snicket?
- …that while Count Olaf was disguised as the receptionist "Shirley", her middle initial and last name were "T. Sinoit-Pécer", which spells receptionist backwards?
- …that the Lousy Lane horseradish factory is named Opportune Odors, a synonym of Lucky Smells?
Quality articles
Web links
- Official Sites
- A Series of Unfortunate Events
- Lemony Snicket
- Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (film)
- Merchandise Sites
- Lemony Snicket Stuff
- Count Olaf (film)
- Fan Sites
Categories
Selected character
Esmé Gigi Geniveve Squalor is the secondary antagonist of the children's novel series A Series of Unfortunate Events by American author Lemony Snicket. She is Count Olaf's girlfriend. Prior to the events of the series she was a professional stage actress and member of V.F.D.[1] Esmé is distinguished by her obsession with high fashion[2] and, later, with her protégée Carmelita Spats. The character's name is widely assumed to be a reference to "For Esmé – with Love and Squalor" by J. D. Salinger.[3][4][5]
Esmé is first introduced as the materialistic and inconsiderate wife of Jerome Squalor and the self-proclaimed "city's sixth most important financial advisor".[6] When the Baudelaires discover Olaf's plan to smuggle Duncan and Isadora Quagmire through a secret passageway in 667 Dark Avenue, Esmé traps them in an unused elevator shaft and tells them their mother once stole a "sugar bowl" from her.[7][8] Though the Baudelaires escape, Olaf's plan succeeds and Esmé leaves Jerome to join the count. During the events that follow, Esmé participates in her boyfriend's schemes but becomes increasingly disenchanted by Olaf's disregard for her interests. While Olaf sees embezzling orphans' inheritances as the "greater good", Esmé wants only the sugar bowl and Olaf's affection.[9]
When Olaf abducts the Snow Scouts (an élite troop of child scouts) as slaves, Esmé takes an interest in the scout Carmelita Spats, welcoming her as an adoptive daughter and shifting her focus from the count. After her plans for a cocktail party at the Hotel Denouement are canceled by Olaf (who decides to murder the guests instead), Esmé leaves his theater troupe and takes Carmelita.[10] When the hotel is set on fire, Esmé is trapped on the second floor, where she and Carmelita presumably die.[11]
Characters
- Individual characters
- Character groups
Canon
- A Series of Unfortunate Events
- The Bad Beginning (1999)
- The Reptile Room (1999)
- The Wide Window (2000)
- The Miserable Mill (2000)
- The Austere Academy (2000)
- The Ersatz Elevator (2001)
- The Vile Village (2001)
- The Hostile Hospital (2001)
- The Carnivorous Carnival (2002)
- The Slippery Slope (2003)
- The Grim Grotto (2004)
- The Penultimate Peril (2005)
- The End (2006)
- Supplementary canon
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