Lemony Snicket Trivia: 33 amazing facts about “A Series of Unfortunate Events”

Lemony Snicket is the pen name of American novelist Daniel Handler. Snicket is the author of many children’s biographies, serving as the narrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events-his best-known work- and appearing as a character within it and All the Wrong Questions.
Because of this, the name “Lemony Snicket” may refer to either the fictional character or the real person.

Knock yourself out on facts right here!

1. Daniel Handler was born February 28, 1970.

2. His character,  Snicket is a harried, troubled writer and photographer falsely accused of felonies, and is continuously hunted by the police and his enemies, the fire-starting side of the secret organization Volunteer Fire Department (V.F.D.).

3. 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 were severed from his former life, apart from his siblings Jacques and Kit,who were also kidnapped and inducted.

4. In the organization, he met and fell in love with a peer named Beatrice, whom he eventually decided to marry. He was falsely accused of murder and arson after a series of unfortunate events (after which the real-world series is in some ways named).

5. 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.

6. Fourteen years thereafter, Beatrice and Bertrand were murdered in a house fire, leaving the Baudelaires orphans.

7. Snicket feels indebted to his former fiancée and 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.

8. Snicket is the subject of a fictional autobiography entitled Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography which contains an introduction from a fictionalized version of Daniel Handler.

9. A pamphlet called 13 Shocking Secrets You’ll Wish You Never Knew About Lemony Snicket was released in promotion of The End.

10. Other works by Snicket include The Baby in the Manger, The Composer Is Dead,Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid, The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming, The Lump of Coal, All the Wrong Questions and 13 Words.

11. A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of 13 children’s novels by Lemony Snicket , which follows the turbulent lives of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire after their parents’ death in a fire.

12. The children are placed in the custody of a murderous relative, Count Olaf, who attempts to steal their inheritance and, later, orchestrates numerous disasters as the children attempt to flee his clutches.

13. As the series progresses, the Baudelaires gradually discover a secret society known as V.F.D. with connections to both Olaf and their parents.

14. The series is narrated by Snicket, who often attempts to dissuade the reader from continuing, and dedicates the books to his dead love interest, Beatrice.

15. Since the release of the first novel, The Bad Beginning, in September 1999, the books have gained significant popularity, critical acclaim, and commercial success worldwide, spawning a film, a video game, assorted merchandise and an upcoming television series premiering early 2017 on Netflix.

16. The main thirteen books in the series have collectively sold more than 60 million copies and have been translated into 41 languages.

17. The books seem to be set in an alternate, “timeless” world with stylistic similarities to both the 19th century and the 1930s, though with contemporary, and seemingly anachronisticscientific knowledge.

18. The plots of the first seven books follow the same basic pattern: the Baudelaires go to a new guardian in a new location, where Count Olaf appears and attempts to steal their fortune.

19. The books following pick up where the previous book ended.

20. There are thirteen books in the series and each book has thirteen chapters, with the exception of “Book the Fourteenth”: a single chapter found at the end of The End.

21. The location of each book’s critical events is usually identified in the book’s title, the first twelve book titles are alliterative.

22. In most books, the children’s skills are used to help them defeat Count Olaf’s plots.

23. Occasionally, the children’s roles switch or other characters use their skills to assist the Baudelaires.

24. Lemony Snicket’s narration and commentary is characteristically cynical and despondent.

25. In the blurb for each book, Snicket warns of the misery the reader may experience in reading about the Baudelaire orphans and suggests abandoning the books altogether.

26. Snicket translates for the youngest Baudelaire orphan, Sunny, who in the early books almost solely uses words or phrases that only make sense to her siblings. As the series progresses, her speech often contains disguised meanings.

27. The protagonists are named after a tragic real-life figure. That would be 19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire, whose own life was as dark as Violet, Klaus and Sunny’s.

28. He was prosecuted on obscenity and blasphemy charges, suffered a stroke, and dealt with an opium addiction.

29. Handler’s first book reading was attended by two adults, who he later learned worked at a different bookstore, hated his books and really just wanted to see who was behind them.

30. Being a parent helped Handler brainstorm all the terrible things that the Baudelaire orphans deal with in the book. Handler’s son is terrified of the books and refuses to read them.

31. Handler wrote eight drafts of the script for the 2004 A Series of Unfortunate Events movie. Then he got fired.

32. In the 2004 adaptation of “Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events”, Count Olaf was played by Jim Carrey.

33. In the 2017 Netflix series, the role of Count Olaf has been given to Neil Patrick Harris.