Lemony Snicket

Lemony Snicket is the name — some would say the pen name, others would say the unfortunate circumstance — under which the American writer Daniel Handler has published A Series of Unfortunate Events, thirteen deliberately, gleefully bleak novels tracing the misfortunes of the orphaned Baudelaire children as they are relentlessly pursued by the treacherous Count Olaf. Told in a wry, doom-laden narrating voice that warns readers away from the very book they are holding, the series (1999–2006) became a defining piece of turn-of-the-millennium children's literature, mixing gothic misery with sly wit and unusual vocabulary lessons. It was adapted into the 2004 film starring Jim Carrey and, more faithfully, into Netflix's three-season series (2017–2019) with Neil Patrick Harris as Olaf. Handler has continued the conceit with All the Wrong Questions, a prequel quartet following a young apprentice Snicket, and several shorter companion volumes, including Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography and The Beatrice Letters. Outside the Snicket persona, Handler writes acclaimed literary fiction for adults under his own name. New readers should start at the true beginning, The Bad Beginning, since the series builds its running jokes, mysteries, and secret organization in careful order across all thirteen books. Snicket himself would, of course, urge you to read something cheerier instead — but the books remain in print regardless.