A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning (Hardcover, First Edition)

Pre-owned - See photos for condition

The Baudelaire Orphans: A Recipe for Disaster If you are looking for a story about three lucky children who live happily ever after, you have picked up the wrong book entirely. From the very first page, when the Baudelaire siblings are told some devastating news on a gray day at Briny Beach, their lives become a relentless parade of catastrophes.

In The Bad Beginning, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are suddenly orphaned and sent to live with a distant relative, Count Olaf. While the children are intelligent, charming, and resourceful, their new guardian is none of those things. He is a greedy, smelly, and treacherous man who is only interested in one thing: the massive Baudelaire fortune.

A Masterclass in Misfortune: The Single Bed: The three children are forced to share one small bed in a filthy room with only one window.

The Chores: Instead of an education, the orphans are tasked with grueling labor, including cleaning a radiator and preparing a large dinner for Olaf’s theater troupe.

The Play: Count Olaf devises a "theatrical" scheme—The Marvelous Marriage—that is actually a legal trap designed to marry Violet and seize her inheritance.

Armed with only Violet’s knack for inventing, Klaus’s love of books, and Sunny’s sharp four teeth, the orphans must outsmart a villain who will stop at nothing—including kidnapping and physical peril—to get what he wants.

"There are many things that are terrible in the world, but one of the most terrible is a person who thinks they are being funny when they are actually being mean." — Lemony Snicket