Having escaped Count Olaf's clutches for now, the three Baudelaire siblings, Violent, Klaus and Sunny, arrive on the shores of Lake Lachrymose to stay with their latest guardian, Aunt Josephine. Sadly, though kind and well-meaning, Aunt Josephine is terrified of absolutely everything: she will not heat her radiators, use the telephone or cook food, just in case those ordinary tasks prove fatal. Worse still, she gives Violet a doll called Pretty Penny and obsessively corrects the children's grammar. It is not long before local sailor Captain Sham, a thinly-disguised Count Olaf, gulls Aunt Josephine with the idea of a surprise for the children. Aunt Josephine suddenly goes missing that night, leaving a highly ungrammatical note, and the Baudelaire's must once again fight their way out of Count Olaf's wicked schemes. Finally, after sailing across the Lachrymose Lake in Hurricane Herman, a nasty moment in the Curdled Cave and an unpleasant encounter with the Lachrymose Leeches for Aunt Josephine, they unmask Captain Sham as Count Olaf. Olaf slips through their grasp once more but evilly promises to find them again, as he will in The Miserable Mill.
Lemony Snicket was born before you were and is likely to die before you as well. He was born in a small town where the inhabitants were suspicious and prone to riot. He grew up near the sea and currently lives beneath it. Until recently, he was living somewhere else. Mr Snicket first received his education from public schools and private tutors, and then vice versa. Early in life, he learned to reupholster furniture, a skill that turned out to be far more important than anyone imagined. He has been hailed as a brilliant scholar, discredited as a brilliant fraud and mistaken for a much taller man on several occasions. A studied expert in rhetorical analysis, Mr Snicket has spent the last several eras researching the travails of the Baudelaire orphans. During his spare time, he gathers evidence and is considered something of an expert by leading authorities. Recently, he had to give up his hobbies due to laws regarding musical performances in mountainous terrain. Lemony Snicket published his first book in 1999 and has not had a good night's sleep since. Mr Snicket is the author of quite a few books, all dreadful, and has been falsely accused of many crimes, all falsely. Once the recipient of several distinguished rewards, he is now an escapee of several indistinguishable prisons. He is widely regarded as one of the most difficult children's authors to capture and imprison. There are thirteen books in the A Series of Unfortunate Events, which should be avoided at all costs. To his horror and dismay, he has no wife or children, only enemies, associates, and the occasional loyal manservant. Lemony Snicket's extended family, if they were alive, would describe him as a distinguished scholar, an amateur connoisseur, and an outright gentleman. Unfortunately this description has been challenged of late, but Egmont Publishing continues to support his research and writing on the lives of the Baudelaire orphans. As he continues with his investigation, interest in the Baudelaire case has increased. So has his horror. Until recently, he was presumed to be 'presumed dead'. Instead, this 'presumed' presumption wasn't disproved not to be incorrect. Most things written about him are not true, but this is.
