Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. By Lemony Snicket. Illustrated by Brett Helquist. Rewardingly, so far in five volumes, nothing has. Orphaned with authorial dispatch by Page 8 of the first book, the three Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, are sent to live with a different inept guardian in each subsequent volume.
Troubles hound the pitiful family.
Uncle Monty is poisoned. Aunt Josephine is thrown overboard to be devoured by leeches. All the while, villainous Count Olaf pursues the children in order to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune. He is always foiled, but lives to try again. By the end of each novel the children are being nudged toward another new and even more fretworthy situation.