The Bad Beginning

Plot

Violet Baudelaire is aged fourteen and has a love for inventions; Klaus Baudelaire is twelve and an avid reader; Sunny Baudelaire is a baby who uses words only her siblings and parents understand, and has several surprisingly large and sharp teeth, which will come in handy. The children are told that their parents died in a fire which also destroyed their house. Mr. Poe, who gives them this news, is a banker whose job it becomes to find a guardian for the orphans. He is also in charge of the large Baudelaire fortune, which Violet will inherit when she turns eighteen. He places them into the care of Count Olaf. Olaf's house is a ramshackle with filthy living conditions covered in disconcerting eye images; it has a tower which the Baudelaires are forbidden from entering. Count Olaf is unpleasant, easily angered and forces the children to perform laborious chores.

One day, the Baudelaires are set the task of making dinner for Olaf and his theatre troupe. They make puttanesca, but when Olaf arrives he demands roast beef. The children reminded him that he never asked them to make roast beef and Olaf becomes angry, lifting Sunny into the air and striking Klaus across the face after the children tell everyone he has only given them one bed.

Olaf gives the children roles in his new play, in which Violet will marry Olaf. The children realize something is amiss and use Justice Strauss's library to research law. Klaus learns that the marriage in the play will be legally binding and that Olaf can inherit their fortune from it. He confronts Olaf, who gets one of his associates to put Sunny in a bird cage, dangling from outside the window of his tower. He threatens to kill her if Klaus and Violet do not follow his plan. Violet constructs a makeshift grappling hook and uses it to climb up the tower. She finds the hook-handed man (a member of Olaf's theatre troupe) waiting to capture her. Klaus is brought up to the tower and they are locked together in the room until the play begins.

After Violet signs the marriage document, Olaf interrupts to tell the audience that their wedding was legally binding. Justice Strauss and Mr. Poe both object, but concede that the law requires them to hand over the Baudelaire fortune to Olaf. Violet interrupts to proclaim that the marriage was not legally binding, as she signed with her left hand despite being right-handed. Justice Strauss agrees that this invalidates the marriage. Before Olaf can be arrested, one of his associates turns the lights in the theatre off and he is able to escape. Justice Strauss tells the Baudelaires that she is willing to adopt them; however, Mr. Poe says that this would go against their parents' will and takes them back to his household until he can find another guardian for them.

Foreshadows

Like all other books in the series (with the exception of The End) The Bad Beginning includes a foreshadowing of the sequel in the last drawing, in this case being a snake curled around a street light as the Baudelaires leave with Mr. Poe, foreshadowing the events of The Reptile Room.

Critical reception

In 2012, School Library Journal named it the 48th best children's novel.

Publishers Weekly praised Snicket's prose, observing, "The author uses formal, Latinate language and intrusive commentary to hilarious effect, even for readers unfamiliar with the literary conventions he parodies." The review went on to laud Helquist for his "exquisitely detailed" and "elegantly designed" artwork.

The trade publication Library Journal praised both Snicket's narrative and prose: "While the misfortunes hover on the edge of being ridiculous, Snicket's energetic blend of humor, dramatic irony, and literary flair makes it all perfectly believable."

Kirkus Reviews noted the uncomfortably macabre tone of the novel, warning that because "the Baudelaire children are truly sympathetic characters", the novel is "not for the squeamish".

Catherine Pelosi of Kids' Book Review responded positively to The Bad Beginning, describing it as "exciting, humorous and appropriately dark".

The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition

The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition (ISBN 0-06-051828-6) was published by HarperCollins on September 23, 2003. In addition to a box, new cover, and additional illustrations, this edition contains a fourteenth chapter filled with author's notes, many of which foreshadow later events in the series or provide excessive detailed information about the events in The Bad Beginning itself.

The Bad Beginning; or, Orphans!

The Bad Beginning: or, Orphans! is a paperback edition of The Bad Beginning designed to mimic a Victorian penny dreadful. It was released on May 8, 2007. The book features a new full-color cover, seven new illustrations, and the first part of a serial supplement entitled The Cornucopian Cavalcade, which in this edition includes the first of 13-part comic entitled The Spoily Brats along with a page of Victorian-era false advertisements, both produced by Michael Kupperman; an advice column written by Lemony Snicket along with a page listing every entry in A Series of Unfortunate Events (some of which are fictional); the first part of a story entitled Q: A Psychic pstory of the psupernatural by Stephen Leacock;

Other special editions

Two more editions of The Bad Beginning were published by Egmont Publishing on October 1, 2003—The Bad Beginning: Special Edition (ISBN 1-4052-0725-6) and The Bad Beginning: Limited Edition (ISBN 1-4052-0726-4). They come in a larger format and contain three plates of color artwork that are redrawn from the original edition of the book and two plates of new color artwork. The Limited Edition is bound in leather and contained within a box, similar to the Rare Edition, and each copy was signed by Daniel Handler. There is also a new "Short-Lived Edition", released for general sale on June 14, 2012.

Audiobook

Two audiobook versions of this novel were released. The first version was released in September 2003. It was read by Tim Curry and featured Daniel Handler, under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket, who read a portion, A Conversation Between the Author and Leonard S. Marcus, which won an "Earphones Award" on AudioFile, which described the audiobook as "fabulously funny" and complimented the conversation involving Handler.

The second version was released in October 2004, after the release of the film, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. This multi-voice cast audio book was narrated by Tim Curry and featured Jim Carrey, Meryl Streep, and Jude Law. This version also included sound effects and a soundtrack. This edition of The Bad Beginning was an Audie Awards finalist for Children's Titles for Ages 8+ in 2005, and a Grammy Award Nominee for Best Spoken Word Album for Children in 2005. AudioFile gave the audiobook a positive review, although stated that "the cast of seven at first sound self-consciously formal until one realizes that the acting is supposed to be as mannered as the clever writing".

Adaptations

Elements of The Bad Beginning were featured in the 2004 film adaptation of the first three books in the series, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. The book was adapted into the first two episodes of the first season of the television series adaptation produced by Netflix.

Translations

Most foreign editions have borne titles which are direct translations of the phrase "the bad beginning", including:

However, the Indonesian version, Mula Malapetaka, translates to "The First Catastrophe" (ISBN 979-22-0301-X); the French Tout commence mal…, "All Begins Badly", translated by Rose-Marie Vassallo (Éditions Nathan, 2002: ISBN 2-09-282353-1); and the Quebec French Nés sous une mauvaise étoile, "Born Under a Bad Star", apparently also translated by Rose-Marie Vassallo (Éditions Heritage, 2007: ISBN 2-7625-2942-5), the Korean version 눈동자의 집 translates to "The House of the Eye" (ISBN 89-546-0834-5), and the Japanese version 最悪のはじまり translates to "The Worst Beginning" (Soshisha, 2001: ISBN 4-7942-1070-1).