The Bad Beginning
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(first in series) | The Reptile Room >>
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| Author | Lemony Snicket (pen name of Daniel Handler |
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| Illustrator | Brett Helquist |
| Cover Artist | Brett Helquist |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | A Series of Unfortunate Events |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
| Released | September 30 1999 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 162pp |
| ISBN | ISBN |
| Followed by | The Reptile Room |
The Bad Beginning is book the first in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire are at Briny Beach one day when Mr. Poe, a banker and friend of their parents, arrives to inform them that their house has burned down, and that their parents have died in the fire. The orphans live with Mr. Poe until he can find a suitable guardian for them. He finally places them with their nearest relative, Count Olaf, who is either their "third cousin four times removed" or "fourth cousin three times removed."
Count Olaf, a dirty man with one eyebrow, shiny eyes, and a mysterious tattoo of an eye on his ankle, turns out to be a greedy and sinister actor who wants the enormous Baudelaire fortune for himself. When he finds that he will not receive it, he treats the children poorly and forces them to do difficult and laborious chores for himself and his acting troupe. To make things worse he is secretly watching them.
One day he tells the orphans that his troupe is coming over to practice their play. He tells the orphans to make dinner for his troupe. They don't have any ingredients, but with the assistance of Justice Strauss who is a neighbor of Count Olaf, they are able to make a meal including pasta puttanesca. When it is dinner time, Count Olaf says that he wanted roast beef for dinner. He strikes Klaus in the face. When the children complain to Mr. Poe, he explains to them that Olaf, who stands in loco parentis, may raise them in any way he wants, and bids them good day. Olaf then apologizes to the children, and informs them that they may (or, it turns out, must) participate in a play he is performing, called The Marvelous Marriage by Al Funcoot (an anagram of Count Olaf). Violet will play his bride, and their neighbor Justice Strauss, a judge, will play the judge who marries the happy couple.
The children spend the day at Justice Strauss' house, reading books, until Olaf's henchman, the Hook-Handed Man comes to fetch them. Klaus takes a book on nuptial law with him, and in reading it finally discovers Olaf's plan. The law says that two people are married if they sign a particular document, each in their own hand, in the presence of a judge. Olaf apparently plans to marry Violet during the play, in order to gain control of the fortune. When he confronts Count Olaf about it, he only smiles and laughs. Klaus runs up to waken his sisters only to find that Sunny is not there.
Count Olaf shows them that he had a henchman kidnap Sunny who is now in a birdcage, hanging out of the top window of the tower.Violet, meanwhile, invents a grappling hook to reach the top of the tower, only to be caught and locked with her brother at the top of the tower until the play begins.
The play is performed, but stops after the wedding scene, when Olaf announces that he is now really married to Violet. When Sunny is returned, Violet announces that she is right-handed but signed the document with her left hand, meaning that the marriage is not valid. Olaf escapes. Justice Strauss announces that she will adopt the orphans, but Mr. Poe tells her that a relative must care for them. He then drives away with the orphans.
[edit] Notes
- On the last picture, there is a snake around a lampost foreshadowing The Reptile Room.
- 'Al Funcoot,' the writer of the play 'The Marvelous Marriage,' is an anagram for the name 'Count Olaf.'
- Lemony Snicket mentions an island that forbids anybody from eating its fruit. This might be a reference to Olaf-Land in The End .
- Brett Helquist's self portrait: Brett looking through binoculars.
[edit] The Rare Edition
Another edition of The Bad Beginning was published by HarperCollins in September 2003; it is known as The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition (ISBN 0-06-051828-6). This boxed edition comes with a new cover, a portrait of the characters and an extra chapter filled with author's notes on the book, many of which foreshadow later events in the series.
[edit] Special Edition
Another edition of The Bad Beginning was published by Egmont Publishing on Oct 1, 2003; it is known as The Bad Beginning - Special Edition (ISBN 1-4052-0725-6), and it comes in a larger format, with a new cover with a cut-out hole in the center, and contains three plates of color artwork that are redrawn from the original edition of the book and three plates of new color artwork. Contrary to the description on Egmont's website, it does not contain any endnotes (as the Rare Edition does). Another edition of this, bound in leather, with gold-edged pages and contained within a box similar to the Rare Edition, also exists.
[edit] Cover images
 US cover |
 UK cover |
[edit] Quotation
See wikiquote:The Bad Beginning
(a.k.a. Daniel Handler)
Illustrated by Brett Helquist
