A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of thirteen children's novels written by American author Daniel Handler under the pen name Lemony Snicket. The books follow the turbulent lives of orphaned siblings Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire. After their parents' death in a fire, the children are placed under the care of a murderous villain, Count Olaf, who attempts to steal their inheritance and causes numerous disasters with the help of his accomplices as the children attempt to flee. Count Olaf pursues the children and their money throughout the books, wearing a different disguise each time. As the plot progresses, the Baudelaires gradually confront further mysteries surrounding their family and deep conspiracies involving a secret society, which also involves Olaf and Snicket, the author's own fictional self-insert.
Characterized by Victorian Gothic tones and absurdist textuality,Olson, Danel. 21st-Century Gothic: Great Gothic Novels Since 2000. Retrieved 13 January 2017.Cross, Julie. Humor in Contemporary Junior Literature. Retrieved 13 January 2017. the books are noted for their dark humor, sarcastic storytelling, and anachronistic elements, as well as frequent cultural and literary allusions.Noah Cruickshank and Kevin McFarland (October 25, 2012). Dissecting the repetition and hidden messages of A Series Of Unfortunate Events . The A. V. Club. Retrieved 13 January 2017.Charney, Maurice. Irony in Children's Literature. Comedy: A Geographic and Historical Guide, Volume 2. Retrieved 13 January 2017. They have been classified as postmodern and metafictional writing, with the plot evolution throughout the later novels being cited as an exploration of the psychological process of the transition from the innocence of childhood to the moral complexity of maturity.Sadenwasser, Tim. The Gothic Fairy Tale in Young Adult Literature: Essays on Stories from Grimm to Gaiman. Retrieved 13 January 2017.Austin, Sara (May/June 2013). Performative Metafiction: Lemony Snicket, Daniel Handler and The End of A Series of Unfortunate Events . The Looking Glass: New Perspectives on Children's Literature, Vol 17, No 1 (2013). Retrieved 13 January 2017. As the series progresses, the Baudelaires must face the reality that their actions have become morally ambiguous, blurring the lines between which characters should be read as "good" or "evil".Pugh, Tison. Innocence, Heterosexuality, and the Queerness of Children's Literature. What, Then, Does Beatrice Mean?: Hermaphroditic Gender, Predatory Sexuality, and Promiscuous Allusion in Daniel Handler/Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Retrieved 19 January 2017.Ahlin, Charlotte (February 18, 2016). What A Series Of Unfortunate Events Taught Me About Justice . Bustle.com. Retrieved 19 January 2017.
Since the release of the first novel, The Bad Beginning, in September 1999, the books have gained significant popularity, critical acclaim, and commercial success worldwide, spawning a film, a video game, assorted merchandise, and a television series. The main thirteen books in the series have collectively sold more than 60 million copies and have been translated into 41 languages.Spangler, Todd. (July 6, 2015). Fake Trailer for Netflix's 'Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events' Lights Up YouTube. Variety. Retrieved 26 November 2016.Lemony Snicket Sneaks Back with 'File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents' . Publishers Weekly. Retrieved July 11, 2014. Several companion books set in the same universe of the series have also been released, including Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, The Beatrice Letters, and the noir prequel tetralogy All the Wrong Questions, which chronicles Snicket's childhood.R. della Cava, Marco (October 22, 2012). Daniel Handler's new Snicket series dives into noir . USA Today. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
Background Prior to the publication of A Series of Unfortunate Events, Handler had never written for children. According to an interview with Handler, he was encouraged to try writing children's books by his friend and editor, Susan Rich. In a separate author interview, Daphne Merkin wrote that Handler adapted a manuscript for a "mock-gothic" book originally intended for adults into a series more suited for children. Handler invented the pseudonym "Lemony Snicket" as an inside joke among friends years before the publication of A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Handler acknowledges Edward Gorey and Roald Dahl as influences for his writing style in the series. The first book in the series, The Bad Beginning, was released on September 30, 1999.
Series overview Plot summary The series follows the adventures of three orphaned siblings. Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire find out that their parents have been killed in a fire that destroyed their home. They are then sent to live with a legal guardian named Count Olaf, who is the primary antagonist of the series. Count Olaf desires the Baudelaire fortune, which Violet will inherit when she reaches the age of eighteen. The children reveal Count Olaf's plan which allows them to be moved out of his care. However, Count Olaf escapes and for the remainder of the series continues to injure or even kill the Baudelaires' guardians, forcing the children to keep moving.
In the books two through seven, Count Olaf disguises himself, which the Baudelaires instantly see through but most of the adults do not, only to reveal his identity by unmasking a tattoo of an eye on his ankle. In the seventh book, The Vile Village, Count Olaf fakes his death by killing Lemony's brother Jacques - who has the same ankle tattoo - and framing the Baudelaires for the murder, forcing the orphans to adopt disguises of their own in the eights through twelfth books and become increasingly involved with V.F.D., a volunteer fire department secret organization that went through a schism, creating the two sides of "volunteers" and "villains". As the story continues, it is revealed that that the Baudelaire parents, the Snickets, Count Olaf and many of the Baudelaire guardians all have ties to V.F.D.
In The Penultimate Peril, the Baudelaire children are sent to the Hotel Denouement for a V.F.D. meeting. Ultimately, Hotel Denouement is deemed unsafe and the children are forced to flee with Count Olaf after setting fire to the hotel, signaling the cancellation of the meeting. The children and Count Olaf then end up on an inhabited island. They are soon joined by Kit Snicket, Lemony's sister and a friend of their parents, who is in labour and is soon to give birth. After a conflict between Count Olaf and the islanders, he is fatally wounded, and accidentally releases the deadly fungus Medusoid mycelium. Although the children discover a cure, they are unable to convince the islanders to consume it. The islanders leave the island in search of an alternative cure, and Count Olaf brings Kit to shore as he succumbs to his wounds. Kit is unable to take the cure due to the effects it has on her baby, and in her dying breath asks the Baudelaires to name the baby after their mother Beatrice. The series ends with an epilogue taking place one year later with the Baudelaire children and the baby Beatrice sailing back into the mainland.
Setting The setting of the world has been compared to Edward Scissorhands in that it is suburban gothic. The books seem to be set in an alternate, "timeless" world stylistically resembling both the 19th century and the 1930s, though with later, and seemingly anachronistic scientific knowledge. For instance, in The Hostile Hospital, the Baudelaire children send a message via Morse code on a telegraph, yet the general store they are in has fiber-optic cable for sale. An "advanced computer" appears in The Austere Academy.
Glendon College scholar Danielle Russell argues that the settings reflect of familiar places, but are "bizarre" enough that young readers feel distanced from the world of the Baudelaires. While the film version sets the Baudelaire mansion in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, real places rarely appear in the books, though some are mentioned. For example, in The Ersatz Elevator, a book in Jerome and Esmé Squalor's library was titled Trout, in France They're Out. There are also references to fictional North American titles: the Duchess of Winnipeg and the King of Arizona.
Characters
The protagonists of A Series of Unfortunate Events are the Baudelaire children: Violet, Klaus and Sunny. They are generally well-behaved and attentive, contrasting with the adults around them. Violet is fourteen at the beginning of the series and has an inventive mind; Klaus is eleven at the beginning and an enthusiastic reader with a photographic memory. Sunny Baudelaire is an infant at the beginning who gradually discovers an interest in cooking. The Baudelaire children frequently use their skills and talents to escape Count Olaf's clutches.
Count Olaf is the antagonist of the series. He is a member of V.F.D., the secret organization to which the Baudelaire parents, and many other characters in the series, also belong. His primary goal for the majority of the series is gain the Baudelaire fortune, a large sum of money that the Baudelaires will inherit when Violet comes of age. Count Olaf is easily identified due to his unibrow and tattoo of the V.F.D. eye on his left ankle, although many of his schemes involve following the Baudelaires in disguise to hide these features. These disguises rarely work against the Baudelaire children but do frequently fool the adults around them.
Lemony Snicket is little involved in the events of the series, but he plays an important role as the narrator. Gradually, it becomes clear that Snicket has ties to V.F.D., the secret organization to which many of the characters belong, including Count Olaf and the Baudelaire parents. It is implied that Snicket has a more personal connection to the Baudelaires. This is confirmed in The End when it is revealed that Beatrice, the woman who Snicket loved and dedicated all the books to, is the Baudelaires' mother.
Various other characters appear in the series. An important recurring character is Arthur Poe, the banker in charge of Baudelaire affair. His primary tasks are safeguarding the Baudelaire fortune until it can be handed over to Violet and finding appropriate guardians for the Baudelaire children while they are underage. Count Olaf's henchmen also make frequent appearance in the series, often appearing in disguises alongside him in his schemes. For the most part, they are unnamed but given descriptive titles such as 'The Hook-Handed Man', 'The Bald Man with the Long Nose', etc. Most characters are rather eccentric and play a key role in establishing the series' absurdist tones. Many of the characters are allusions to other famous literary texts.Kramer, Melody Joy (October 12, 2006). A Series Of Unfortunate Literary Allusions . National Public Radio. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
When asked in a Moment Magazine interview about the Baudelaire children and Snicket's own Jewish heritage he replied, "Oh yeah! Yes. The Baudelaires are Jewish! I guess we would not know for sure, but we would strongly suspect it, not only from their manner but from the occasional mention of a rabbi or bar mitzvah or synagogue. The careful reader will find quite a few rabbis."
Literary analysis and themes The series is generally classified under children's literature. More precisely, various writers would further classify the book as gothic fiction, mock-gothic, satire of gothic literature, neo-Victorian or suburban gothic. In addition, the series has been described as absurdist fiction because of its strange characters, improbable storylines and black comedy. Readers debate over the presence and role of realism in the series.