The Bad Beginning is the first of 13 volumes in the appropriately named collection, A Series of Unfortunate Events.
The comically dark tale centres around three children, Violet, Klaus and baby Sunny, whose parents are killed in a fire which also destroys their home – a tragic event which sets the tone for the rest of the book. Sent to live with Count Olaf, a distant relative, their unsettled lives take a turn for the worse. Count Olaf treats the children like slaves, ordering them to cook, clean, fetch and carry for him and forcing them to share a single, filthy bedroom, with only one bed.
Attractively presented, this gothic series is sure to appeal to readers with a taste for the macabre. Those anticipating a pleasant, happy read should avoid this series, for as Lemony Snicket states in the opening sentence, ‘If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.’
Lemony Snicket is the pseudonym novelist Daniel Handler used while writing his sequence of darkly comic children’s books known as A Series of Unfortunate Events. The 13 novels in the series relate the hard-luck history of the Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus and Sunny. Snicket narrates their piteous adventures and misfortunes at the hands of evil Count Olaf, a master of disguises and truly bad actor.
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