Launch of Lemony Snicket

New York is the capital of kick-off, opening, and premiere parties, but rarely has it seen a party like the one Wednesday to mark the publication of “The End” (HarperCollins), which is the final book in Lemony Snicket’s “The Series of Unfortunate Events,” which goes on sale on Friday the 13th.“Weeping commences at six in the evening. Tissue service ends at eight,” read the invitation to the party.I didn’t see any tears, but perhaps I was too distracted by the food: baudelaire bruschetta, Grim Grotto tapas and a Shockingly Full Kitchen Table Buffet from Count Olaf’s Kitchen.The editor of the series for HarperCollins children’s books, Susan Rich, presented gifts. The representative of Mr. Snicket — and the actual author of the series — Daniel Handler received a framed lachrymose leech in resin, the very same leech photographed for the companion book released in September, “Beatrice’s Letters.” The illustrator of the series, Brett Helquist, received an accordion — just the type Mr. Handler plays at book appearances (and in the band the Magnetic Fields).Mr. Handler wrote the first five books of the series in his apartment in New York and the rest in San Francisco, where he now lives. Mr. Helquist did his illustrations from his home in Park Slope. The two rarely talked during their eight-year collaboration.On the occasion of “The End,” Mr. Handler spoke about the beginning of the series. “I’d been hanging out in my agent’s office, sitting on her couch doing nothing,” he said. “One day she invited me to a party. ‘You’ll meet your editor there,’ she said. I was busy drinking the free wine when I met Susan,” who did indeed become his editor.“And so I want to stop talking to let people make their own nefarious plans here,” Mr. Handler said. “I’m living proof that really anything can happen.”Things certainly were different at the beginning, when Ms. Rich was given a $200 budget for the party she threw for the first book, which she held in her apartment.The 13th book has a print run of 2.5 million.So how much was the party budget?“It grew proportionately,” the book’s publicist at HarperCollins, Sandee Roston, said.Since the print run of “The End” is 279 times that of “The Bad Beginning,” it’s possible the party budget grew to $55,600, a figure I shared with Ms. Roston. “No comment,” she said.The 5,000-square-foot 19th-century townhouse called 632 on Hudson, where the party was held, typically rents for $7,000 to $9,000 a night. Conveniently, it came already decorated with Snicket-like objects and oddities, although HarperCollins put the snakes in the bathrooms.NINTH TRIBUTEBeethoven’s Ninth blasted Wednesday at Avery Fisher Hall, but the most important figure of the evening was the $1.8 million raised at the dinner beforehand for 550 guests. The honoree was the chief executive of Sony Corporation, Sir Howard Stringer.

Launch of Lemony Snicket

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