This morning (Friday the 13th) I received an e-mail from Lemony Snicket with this announcement:

Dear Reader,

Something terrible has happened.

The entire text of THE BAD BEGINNING, the first book in A Series of Unfortunate Events, has been made available online. For FREE. Open to anyone. Including horrible villains, innocent readers, and you.

PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THIS LINK TO FRIENDS, FAMILY, OR PEOPLE WITH COMPUTERS.
SHARING THE UNABRIDGED FREE VERSION OF THE BAD BEGINNING WITH SOMEONE WHO HAS NEVER READ IT IS COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE. "Completely irresponsible" is a phrase which here means no one will be able to prove you did it.

Click here to view Lemony Snicket's video response to this latest unfortunate event.

The sudden appearance of the uncoded text online may be a horrible mistake. Hopefully, it will be corrected as soon as possible.

With all due respect,




so here's the link and the widget supplied by publisher HarperCollins:



I LOVE their marketing approach.