After narrowly escaping the menacing clutches of the dastardly Count Olaf, the three Baudelaire orphans are taken in by a kindly herpetologist with whom they live happily for an all-too-brief time.

After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other and their wits when it turns out that the distant relative who is appointed their guardian is determined to use any means necessary to get their fortune.

The woeful saga of the Baudelaire orphans continues as evil Count Olaf discovers their whereabouts at Esmé Squalor's seventy-one bedroom penthouse and concocts a new plan for stealing their family fortune.

Accidents, evil plots, and general misfortune abound when, in their continuing search for a home, the Beaudelaire orphans are sent to live and work in a sinister lumber mill.

Amy and Dan cross the oceans on the trail of a famous aviator, but they find more than they're looking for. Their enemies are becoming more vicious, and the truths they discover more crushing than ever.

The Baudelaire orphans disguise themselves as employees of the Hotel Denoument and find themselves pursued by the evil Count Olaf and by others.

In the country of Carthya, a devious nobleman engages four orphans in a brutal competition to be selected to impersonate the king's long-missing son in an effort to avoid a civil war.

Lost at sea, the Baudelaire orphans, along with the evil Count Olaf, wash up on the shore of an island populated by an oddly placid group of inhabitants, and they try to decide whether or not they are truly safe.

In the perilous Mortmain Mountains, Klaus and Violet Baudelaire meet another well-read person, who helps them try to rescue Sunny from the villainous Count Olaf and his henchmen as they all near "the last safe place."

Still pursued by the evil Count Olaf, the Baudelaire orphans attempt to reach a very important VFD meeting, but first they must travel in a rattletrap submarine to the Gorgonian Grotto, a dangerous underwater cave, in search of the sugar bowl.