Who Is Lemony Snicket?

This question originally appeared on Quora.

By Samarth Mohan, Loves Books

Lemony Snicket is the pen-name for the American author Daniel Handler.

I tried mailing his office once. The stock reply [reproduced below] was pretty funny.

Dear Writer,

Thank you for your message. When you wrote it, you probably thought you

might receive a reply from Lemony Snicket. You were almost wrong.

I'm sorry to tell you that a letter from Mr. Snicket could put you in

terrible danger. For instance, Mr. Snicket wrote a number of letters to a

woman named Beatrice, the most alarming of which are contained within the

book The Beatrice Letters, and she subsequently died a sad, horrible,

awful death that still plagues me to this day. This is an extreme case, of

course, but you can see why you would never want to receive a letter

signed by Mr. Snicket.

There is at least one thing more dangerous than a letter by Mr. Snicket,

however, and that is a book by him. Each of the books in A Series of

Unfortunate Events have been more dreadful than the last. The End, the

thirteenth and final book in the series, is the most upsetting of all.

Sadly, your message to Lemony Snicket suggests that you may have already

read one or several of his books. While I'm sure he is somewhat grateful

for your interest in the Baudelaire case, hopefully it is not too late for

you to stop before The End. Wouldn't you prefer to read something else?

With all due respect,

Anonymous Representative

HarperCollins Publishers

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