Changes

|sort=Bad Beginning

|title=The Bad Beginning

|date=May 2003

|isbn=1405208678

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Violet, Klaus and their baby sister, Sunny Baudelaire are three very unlucky, very sad children. Their beloved parents have recently perished in a fire at their home. Not only have they lost their mother and father, but they have also lost all their possessions. The only things left to them are the clothes they stand up in. Mr Poe, the asthmatic, bronchial executor of their parents' will tracks down a relative with whom they must live. Count Olaf is not a nice man. Tall, thin, gaunt and distinctly suspicious, he does not treat the Baudelaire orphans well. They share a room with one bed, their clothes are dumped in a cardboard box and they must spend half the day doing chore after chore after chore. It is clear to the Baudelaires that Count Olaf has taken them in for only one reason: he hopes to get his hands on their fortune. With the aid of the kindly Justice Strauss, Violet the boffin with a talent for inventing gadgets and Klaus the clever bookworm must find and foil the Count's evil plan