Post by Edwin on Oct 15, 2006 9:21:45 GMT -5
Cult Series of Events comes to a sorry End
By Paul Sims
AFTER 12 adventures so woeful that even its author urges readers to pick up another book, the cult series of A Series of Unfortunate Events had come to an end.
The 13th and final instalment was released in the UK and in America at precisely 3pm GMT yesterday (Friday).
Writer Lemont Snicket has promised that the aptly entitled finale, Th e End, is just as miserable as its gloomy predecessors.
The series follows the misfortunes of the Baudelaire orphans - three brave siblings whose wealthy parents died in a fire.
Throughout the books the orphans are at the mercy of evil Count Olaf who is desperate to get hold of their inheritance.
The children's lives are so dreadful that Snicket pleads with his readers to find something more cheerful to read. But since the first book in the series, The Bad Beginning, was published in 1999, they have been a global hit.
They have been translated into 40 languages and have sold more than 50million copies worldwide, with five million in the UK alone.
The books spent more than 700 weeks on the New York Times best seller list, and the first three were turned into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep.
Such was the demand to discover the ultimate fate of three children - Violet, Klaus and Sunny - that more than 250,000 British fans ordered copies of The End.
'It's a staggering number,' said a spokesman for the series' UK publishers, Egmont Books. 'The demand is phenomenal. We wouldn't want to give away the plot but suffice to say the children will, as you can imagine, suffer misery beyond belief.'
However Daniel Handler - the author's real name - revealed snippets of what is in store on the book's website.
He writes: 'Even if you've braved the previous 12 volumes, you probably can't stand such unpleasantries as a fearsome herd of sheep, an enormous birdcage and a truly haunting secret about the Baudelaire parents.
'It has been my solemn occupation to complete the history of the Baudelaire orphans and at last I am finished.
'You likely have some other occupation, so if I were you I would drop this book at once, so the does not finish you.'
Handler, 36, says he took his inspiration for the Brothers Grimm, Roald Dahl and Edward Gorey.
On his website Handler, who lives in San Francisco with his wife and three-year-old son Otto, claims he was partly responsible for Gorey's death in 2000, adding: 'I sent him a copy of The Bad Beginning with a note apologising for stealing his ideas.
'He died a few weeks latwer and I like to think that I killed him - that he thought, "My work is done, there's no more need for me".'
p.sims@dailymail.co.uk
By Paul Sims
AFTER 12 adventures so woeful that even its author urges readers to pick up another book, the cult series of A Series of Unfortunate Events had come to an end.
The 13th and final instalment was released in the UK and in America at precisely 3pm GMT yesterday (Friday).
Writer Lemont Snicket has promised that the aptly entitled finale, Th e End, is just as miserable as its gloomy predecessors.
The series follows the misfortunes of the Baudelaire orphans - three brave siblings whose wealthy parents died in a fire.
Throughout the books the orphans are at the mercy of evil Count Olaf who is desperate to get hold of their inheritance.
The children's lives are so dreadful that Snicket pleads with his readers to find something more cheerful to read. But since the first book in the series, The Bad Beginning, was published in 1999, they have been a global hit.
They have been translated into 40 languages and have sold more than 50million copies worldwide, with five million in the UK alone.
The books spent more than 700 weeks on the New York Times best seller list, and the first three were turned into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep.
Such was the demand to discover the ultimate fate of three children - Violet, Klaus and Sunny - that more than 250,000 British fans ordered copies of The End.
'It's a staggering number,' said a spokesman for the series' UK publishers, Egmont Books. 'The demand is phenomenal. We wouldn't want to give away the plot but suffice to say the children will, as you can imagine, suffer misery beyond belief.'
However Daniel Handler - the author's real name - revealed snippets of what is in store on the book's website.
He writes: 'Even if you've braved the previous 12 volumes, you probably can't stand such unpleasantries as a fearsome herd of sheep, an enormous birdcage and a truly haunting secret about the Baudelaire parents.
'It has been my solemn occupation to complete the history of the Baudelaire orphans and at last I am finished.
'You likely have some other occupation, so if I were you I would drop this book at once, so the does not finish you.'
Handler, 36, says he took his inspiration for the Brothers Grimm, Roald Dahl and Edward Gorey.
On his website Handler, who lives in San Francisco with his wife and three-year-old son Otto, claims he was partly responsible for Gorey's death in 2000, adding: 'I sent him a copy of The Bad Beginning with a note apologising for stealing his ideas.
'He died a few weeks latwer and I like to think that I killed him - that he thought, "My work is done, there's no more need for me".'
p.sims@dailymail.co.uk
