The Vile Village
Dear Reader,
You have undoubtedly picked up this book by mistake, so please put it down. Nobody in their right mind would read this particular book about the lives of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire on purpose, because each dismal moment of their stay in the village of V.F.D. has been faithfully and dreadfully recorded in these pages.
I can think of no single reason why anyone would want to open a book containing such unpleasant matters as migrating crows, an angry mob, a newspaper headline, the arrest of innocent people, the Deluxe Cell, and some very strange hats.
It is my solemn and sacred occupation to research each detail of the Baudelaire children's lives and write them all down, but you may prefer to do some other solemn and sacred thing, such as reading another book instead.
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket is the pen name of American novelist Daniel Handler (born February 28, 1970). Snicket is the author of several children's books, serving as the narrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events (his best-known work) and appearing as a character within the series. Because of this, the name Lemony Snicket may refer to both a fictional character and a real person. This article deals primarily with the character.
As a character, Snicket is a harried, troubled writer and researcher falsely accused of felonies and continuously hunted by the police and his enemies, the fire-starting side of the secret organization Volunteer Fire Department (V.F.D.). As a child he was kidnapped and inducted as a "neophyte" into V.F.D., where he was trained in rhetoric and sent on seemingly pointless missions while all connections to his former life, apart from his siblings Jacques and Kit (who were also kidnapped and inducted), were severed. In the organization he met and fell in love with a peer named Beatrice, to whom he eventually became engaged. After a series of unfortunate events (after which the real-world series is in some ways named), he became falsely accused of murder and arson. Eventually the fallacies grew so much that The Daily Punctilio reported his death. Beatrice eventually moved on and married Bertrand Baudelaire, becoming the mother of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, the protagonists of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Fourteen years thereafter Beatrice and Bertrand were murdered in a house fire, leaving the Baudelaires orphans. Feeling indebted to his former fiancée, Snicket embarks on a quest to chronicle the lives of the Baudelaire children until they become old enough to face the troubles of the world on their own.
A Series of Unfortunate Events
A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of children's novels (or novellas) by Lemony Snicket (the pen name of American author Daniel Handler) which follows the turbulent lives of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire after their parents' death in an arsonous house fire. The children are placed in the custody of their distant cousin Count Olaf, who begins to abuse them and openly plots to embezzle their inheritance. After the Baudelaires are removed from his care by their parents' estate executor, Arthur Poe, Olaf begins to doggedly hunt the children down, bringing about the serial slaughter and demise of a multitude of characters.
A Series of Unfortunate Events consists of thirteen books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
