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| Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket. |
The Series of Unfortunate Events may have came to a close back in 2006, after 13 volumes, but Lemony Snicket and his persona linger on. Snicket and his alter ego, Daniel Handler, have turned their hand to picture books (The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming; The Composer Is Dead) in recent seasons, and now comes word of a new Snicket series. It will be a four-book series for middle-graders, edited by Snicket’s longtime editor, Susan Rich. “I can neither confirm nor deny that I have begun research into a new case,” Snicket said in a statement, “and I can neither confirm nor deny that the results are as dreadful and unnerving as A Series Of Unfortunate Events.”
U.K. rights have been bought by Egmont, which successfully published the previous series in Britain. (For more on the British acquisition, click here.) U.S. rights have not been sold, according to Handler’s agent, Charlotte Sheedy of Sterling Lord Literistic. HarperCollins Children’s Books published Unfortunate Events here, and has continued to publish Snicket’s picture books, including a forthcoming collaboration with Maira Kalman called 13 Words, to be published in fall 2010. HC publicity director Sandee Roston told PW that she was “not aware of a deal with HarperCollins at this time.” Stay tuned.
