New pictures from The Baby In The Manger

[Dante]

So it turns out that, a little more than a month ago, a copy of the incredibly rare Lemony Snicket / Lisa Brown story The Baby in the Manger appeared on eBay. For those who aren't aware, this is a story which was originally commissioned by the Washington Post, who turned it down upon receiving the manuscript allegedly on the grounds that it was "anti-family"; Handler later had fewer than seventy copies printed in association with a student project. This is one of those. Alas, it looks like nobody here snared it, and with a final bidding price of $177.86 then even I'm not sure if it would have been worth it. But! On the plus side, the listing did come with several fresh, high-quality photographs of the text, from which we can get a slightly better idea of the contents.

Click here for the original listing.



















Let us continue to hope that this one day receives a wider printing.

[Cafe SalMONAlla]

Ooh the old-school stamp! That first sentence is so potato ing Snickety.

[Skelly Craig]

Oh yeah I've seen this a couple weeks ago, but then forgot about it. I wish they would've shown the full first paragraph, but a first page is better than nuthin.

[bear]

i never understood why they always listed this in his other picture books (under "also by lemony snicket"), as if it were something you could skip out to the bookstore and buy whenever.

[gliquey]

Jan 4, 2016 5:19:20 GMT -5 Dante said:

who turned it down upon receiving the manuscript allegedly on the grounds that it was "anti-family"

This sounds like a euphemism for "contains homosexuality" to me, but I wouldn't think that to be a likely theme in something titled The Baby In The Manger. Am I getting the wrong end of the stick? Or is the meaning of "anti-family" here anyone's guess?

[Skelly Craig]

I don't know why you'd think it means "contains homosexuality".. I just thought they meant the story was too cynical of a parody of the nativity story.

[penne]

^same

also i am completely uninformed about snicket/handler releases and stuff, but is there any reason why this is being marketed as a lemony snicket story instead of a daniel handler one? is L.S. as a character at all relevant to it (which would be weird)? or is it just about the narrative style (i've never read any daniel handler books to know whether there's a significant difference in the writing style)

[bear]

he's never released a picture book as Daniel Handler. The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming, The Lump Of Coal, The Composer Is Dead, 13 Words, The Dark, etc. are also credited to Lemony Snicket even though they don't have anything to do with the character

since this was commissioned by the Washington Post, they probably were also looking to publish a Lemony Snicket-esque story (there is a distinct difference between Snicket narration and Handler narration.)

[Dante]

An excellent explanation. Put succinctly, Daniel Handler does not write for children (though he does occasionally write for teenagers). Added to that, back in 2002, Daniel Handler was not in and of himself a big name, so if you were to commission work from him for popular public consumption it would almost certainly be a request for Lemony Snicket.