A Series of Unfortunate Events

The Bad Beginning (1)

Condition: New, Hardcover

Author: Lemony Snicket

Illustrator: Brett Helquist

The Bad Beginning is a novel by Daniel Handler, written under his pen name Lemony Snicket, and the first of thirteen books in the A Series of Unfortunate Events collection. It features the three recently orphaned Baudelaire children, 14-year-old Violet, 12-year-old Klaus and 6-month-old Sunny, who are given into the care of a distant relative, Count Olaf, who only wants the fortune Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire left behind.

Plot Summary

The story begins with the three Baudelaire children at Briny Beach. Then Mr. Poe arrives with some terrible news: the Baudelaire mansion has been destroyed in a fire and that Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire are dead.

The Baudelaire children are taken to their new guardian Count Olaf, a distant relative. Count Olaf treats them horribly by forcing them to do all his cleaning and cooking, and provides them with only one bed to sleep in. Count Olaf also refers to them as "orphans" instead of "children".

Olaf's theater troupe is coming to his place, and he orders the orphans to prepare dinner for them all. However, the siblings do not have any ingredients, and are unsure what to do. In search of help, they visit Olaf's kindly neighbor, Justice Strauss, who promptly invites them inside. After finding instructions in a cookbook, they buy the ingredients to make Pasta Puttanesca. When the troupe comes, Olaf is outraged that they did not make roast beef. However, when Klaus retorts to a comment by the Count, Olaf slaps him. The troupe comes in and applauds Olaf. The next day the children visit Mr. Poe at his bank in order to get help, and Mr. Poe explains to them that Olaf may be adjusting to the life of a dad. When the children return, Olaf tells them that Mr. Poe talked to him about their troubles, so Olaf forces the orphans to play in "The Marvelous Marriage" by the great playwright Al Funcoot (an anagram of "Count Olaf"). Olaf will play the groom, Violet will be the bride, Klaus will be cheering people in the audience, while Sunny is trapped in a cage as a warning to the orphans to not do anything stupid or Sunny will fall to her death.

Klaus spends all night reading Nuptial Law in the hope of learning how they can foil Olaf's plans to get their fortune; he discovers that two people can be married if they sign a document and state their wedding vows in the presence of a legal judge. Olaf plans to marry Violet during the play, in order to gain control of the fortune, but when Klaus accuses him of this, Olaf only laughs. It is at this point that Violet and Klaus discover that Olaf is holding Sunny captive, in a birdcage suspended from the roof of his house.

Count Olaf tells them that one of his henchmen had kidnapped Sunny while they were sleeping. He warns them that if they don't cooperate during the play, the cage will be released which would send Sunny to her death. That night, Violet invents a grappling hook to reach the top of the tower, but is met by The Hooked-handed man who brings up Klaus and makes them stay until the play. The night of the play, Violet signs the document with her left hand to invalidate the bill. Olaf is supposed to go to prison but escapes by having an associate turn off the lights to the theater; Violet makes her way to the controls. As she reaches for them, Olaf grabs her shoulder and tells her that he will be back for the fortune, and will kill them all; Olaf escapes. Justice Strauss tells the children that she will adopt them, but Mr. Poe says that they have to be raised by a relative. They get in Mr. Poe's car and it drives away as Justice Strauss waves goodbye.

Series Summary

The series follows the adventures of three siblings, Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire, after their parents were killed in a fire at the family mansion. In The Bad Beginning, they briefly live with a friend of their parents, Mr. Poe, who is the person in charge of the Baudelaire fortune after the Baudelaire parents' deaths, before being sent to live with Count Olaf, whom Mr. Poe describes as either the siblings' "third cousin four times removed, or their fourth cousin three times removed". The siblings discover that he intends to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune, which awaits Violet, the eldest child, when she turns eighteen. In the first seven books, Olaf, each time in different disguises, follows the children wherever they go so he can get closer to the orphans and steal their fortune. Their roles switch in the eighth through twelfth books, in which the orphans adopt disguises while on the run from the police after being framed by Count Olaf, disguised as Detective Dupin, for the murder of Count Omar (really Jacques Snicket). The Baudelaires routinely try to get help from Mr. Poe, but Poe is always either busy with work, oblivious to the danger Olaf poses, unaware that the disguised Olaf is not who he claims to be or simply thinks the Baudelaires are lying.

Each of the three siblings has a distinctive skill that often helps them during their adventures. Violet is always inventing new things to help them, Klaus is always finding out new information by reading books, and Sunny has extremely sharp teeth that can bite almost anything in two. [4] In later books, Sunny learns how to cook, as she begins to grow to the normal size for her teeth so cooking becomes her primary skill. Sunny originally spoke in single word utterances which are often a variety of incomplete sentences and some short word sentences as well. Their meaning is either disguised by being spelled phonetically (e.g., 'surchmi' in The Slippery Slope), backwards (e.g., 'edasurc' [crusade] in The Carnivorous Carnival) through cultural references (Sunny says: 'Matahari', followed by a definition of 'If I stay, I can spy on them and find out.'), or being written in other languages (e.g., Shalom or Sayonara), but eventually she begins to speak more in complete English sentences, her first possibly being "I'm not a baby" in The Slippery Slope, or "Like me" in The Vile Village.

Lemony Snicket, the author of the stories and the pseudonym of Daniel Handler, is actually a character himself on the periphery of the stories. He follows the Baudelaires, researching and recording their exploits. Bruce Butt noted in 2002 that in each book a letter from Snicket to his editor is included, presented as exciting updates on Snicket's research into the Baudelaire orphans, which Butt considered to be "the slyest aspect of the way this series has been ingeniously promoted". Over the course of the series, the Baudelaires learn some vague information about Snicket and possibly meet him briefly in The Wide Window and The Penultimate Peril.

1. The Bad Beginning
2. The Reptile Room
3. The Wide Window
4. The Miserable Mill
5. The Austere Academy
6. The Ersatz Elevator
7. The Vile Village
8. The Hostile Hospital
9. The Carnivorous Carnival
10. The Slippery Slope
11. The Grim Grotto
12. The Penultimate Peril
13. The End

A Series of Unfortunate Events

The Bad Beginning (1)