B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S G E N R E F I C T I O N * 2 0 2 3 “WITH ALL DUE RESPECT”: THE FIRST NINE VOLUMES FROM LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, EACH VOLUME STAMPED, DATED AND INSCRIBED BY “LEMONY SNICKET” HIMSELF 29. SNICKET, Lemony. A Series of Unfortunate Events. The Bad Beginning. The Reptile Room. The Wide Window. The Miserable Mill. The Austere Academy. The Ersatz Elevator. The Vile Village. The Hostile Hospital. The Carnivorous Carnival. New York, 1999-2002. Nine volumes. Small octavo, original laminated paper boards. $5000 A splendid set of the first nine volumes of the Lemony Snicket series, all first editions in beautiful condition, each volume with embossed stamp “Library of Lemony Snicket” and signed by the author “with all due respect” and dated. One of the most imaginative series to appear in recent years, books by “Lemony Snicket”—a pen name of author Daniel Handler—”have collectively sold more than 51 million copies worldwide… Handler’s literary opera buffa of calamity has been a children’s book phenomenon second only to Harry Potter… The tales chronicle the unrelenting misfortunes of the three Baudelaire siblings… [Readers] rebelled against the author’s admonition to steer clear of the horrid stories, in which the hapless Baudelaires face hurricanes, indentured servitude, entrapment in a shack with biting crabs, numerous kidnappings, a merciless all-night gym class, shoves down an elevator shaft and near death by spores from a deadly fungus, to name a few. The End is indeed the end of what the author calls ‘170 chapters of misery… Critics have compared the Snicket oeuvre to Edward Gorey, the Brothers Grimm and Roald Dahl. They are melodramatic gothic-style cliffhangers, darkly lighthearted (or lightly dark-hearted) books with a contemporary sardonic wit… The inventive use of irony and language, including defining big words… shows that ‘kids have a nose for literature that is often underestimated’” (New York Times). By 2006 the Series had extended to 13 volumes. A fine set of the first nine volumes of the series. 29
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