The Bad Beginning

The Bad Beginning (1999) opens Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, a wickedly funny, mock-Gothic saga of three resourceful children and the calamities that befall them.

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are intelligent, charming, and — as the narrator warns at every turn — extremely unlucky. When their parents die in a terrible fire, the three orphans are sent to live with a distant relative they have never met: the villainous, greasy-fingered Count Olaf, who wants nothing but the enormous fortune they will inherit. As Olaf's schemes grow more outrageous and more dangerous, the siblings must rely on Violet's inventions, Klaus's reading, and Sunny's very sharp teeth to survive.

Narrated in a droll, self-interrupting voice that defines words and begs readers to look away, the book is darkly comic children's fiction for anyone who prefers their stories clever, gloomy, and unafraid of misfortune. It sets the tone for one of the most beloved middle-grade series of its era.