Excellent work, cwm! You're a credit to 667 in my absence - which, regrettably, prevented me from posting the official press release which precipitated these articles, sent to me from the very top:
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EGMONT PRESS ACQUIRES NEW SERIES
AS RECLUSIVE AUTHOR LEMONY SNICKET
WRITES AGAINEgmont Press has agreed a deal to publish a brand
new series by international bestselling author Lemony
Snicket.This will be the first new series by the reclusive Mr Snicket since A Series of
Unfortunate Events (which amassed worldwide sales of over 50 million
copies) concluded in 2006. The 13 book series launched in 2001 and
charted the progress of orphans Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire.
Despite their best efforts, the children are imprisoned, abused and
narrowly escape death many times in a series of misadventures with their
evil, distant relative, Count Olaf.
The new series, which at this stage cannot be named (for fear of
jeopardizing the final stages of Mr Snicket’s investigations), will contain
four titles and the first instalment will publish in hardback in 2012.
Egmont Publisher, Leah Thaxton said, “Usually, I look forward to opening
my post. It’s exciting to think that I might find a manuscript to bring
comfort and joy to any reader. But that morning, when I saw the
handwriting on the envelope…Well, how would you feel if you knew you were
about to unleash yet more untold misery on the unsuspecting children of this
country? We at Egmont can’t escape Lemony Snicket’s grim story but,
for the rest of you, there’s time. PLEASE READ SOMETHING ELSE!”
Not much is known about Mr Snicket, who has to live in hiding, due to the
nature of his investigations. It is believed he may hail from the US, though
there have been a number of unverified sightings in the UK.
The new deal brokered with the Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency in New York is
for UK and Commonwealth rights including Australia and New Zealand. The series is being developed in collaboration with Mr Snicket’s long-time editor, Susan Rich.
When reached by telephone for comment, Lemony Snicket said, "I can neither confirm nor deny that I have begun research into a new case, and I can neither confirm nor deny that the results are as dreadful and unnerving as A Series Of Unfortunate Events. However, I can confirm that Egmont will be publishing these findings. By the way, who is this?"
Director of Egmont Press, Cally Poplak said, “Well, we are very, very worried. No one listened to our warnings last time with A Series of Unfortunate Events, and we tried everything to stop people reading the books. As if the recession weren’t bad enough, now British readers have the threat of a new series from Mr Snicket hanging over them. As a responsible publisher, of course we shall put all our efforts into ensuring no child is exposed to yet more misery from Mr Snicket’s investigations.”
Egmont Press has managed to persuade Mr Snicket to come out of hiding and travel under cover to the UK for the momentous publication of A Series of Unfortunate Events in paperback for the first time in January 2010. Full details of his top secret schedule of events and media appearances will be made available in due course.
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Edit: The 2012 publication date is presumably to allow both time for Mr. Snicket to finish the series, and to allow Egmont 2010/11 to publish and publicise the heck out of the aSoUE paperbacks (which will themselves help rebuild the fanbase for the new books).
Edit Again:
PublishersWeekly confirms that the U.S. rights to the new series haven't yet been sold, so we don't know yet if HarperCollins will be the publisher of the new series in America; it also adds that
13 Words will be published in the autumn (fall) of 2010.