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Lemony Snicket is the pen name of American author Daniel Handler (born 1970) and a fictional character of his creation. Handler has published various children's books under the name, including A Series of Unfortunate Events, which has sold over 60 million copies and spawned a 2004 film and Netflix TV series from 2017 to 2019 of the same name. Lemony Snicket also serves as the in-universe author who investigates and re-tells the story of the Baudelaire orphans in A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Snicket is also the subject of a fictional autobiography titled . Further telling of Snicket's adventures can be found in the four-part children's series All the Wrong Questions, as well as a pamphlet titled 13 Shocking Secrets You'll Wish You Never Knew About Lemony Snicket (released in promotion of The End). Other works by Snicket include The Baby in the Manger, The Composer Is Dead, , The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming, The Lump of Coal, and 13 Words.
In the 2004 film, Lemony Snicket is voiced by Jude Law while James Henderson plays him physically; he documents the events of the film on a typewriter from inside a clock tower. In the video game based on the film, his voice is provided by Tim Curry. In the Netflix series, Snicket is interpreted as a mysterious and omniscient narrator chronicling the events of the Baudelaire children a la Rod Serling, and is portrayed by Patrick Warburton.
As a character, Snicket is a harried, troubled writer and photographer who is False accusation of various felonies and continuously hunted by the police and his enemies, the fire-starting side of the secret organization V.F.D. (Volunteer Fire Department). In the organization, he met and fell in love with an associate named Beatrice, to whom he got engaged. He was falsely accused of murder and arson. Eventually, the fallacies grew so much that The Daily Punctilio reported his death. Beatrice later moved on and married Bertrand Baudelaire, becoming the mother of Violet, Klaus Baudelaire, and Sunny Baudelaire, the protagonists of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Fourteen years thereafter, Beatrice and Bertrand were supposedly murdered in a house fire, leaving the Baudelaire children orphaned and then pursued by Snicket's former associate, Count Olaf. Snicket feels indebted to his former fiancée and embarks on a quest to chronicle the lives of the Baudelaire children until they become old enough to face the troubles of the world on their own. Lemony Snicket has charged himself with the task of researching and documenting the story of the Baudelaire orphans for "many personal and legal reasons". He traces their movements and collects evidence relating to their adventures. Though he is never specified to have met the children in the book series, in the Netflix adaptation of The Penultimate Peril he is confirmed as the taxi driver trying to take the children away from the hotel after Dewey Denouncement's death (this was only implied in the original book).
As the series progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Snicket had known the Baudelaire orphans' parents well through their connections to V.F.D. However, as mentioned in The Hostile Hospital and The End, despite all of Lemony's research and hard work, he still does not know the current location, position or status of the Baudelaire children. Additionally, it is unclear if he ever met them in the books.
Snicket is frequently disparaging of himself; he has described himself as a cowardice, and at various points in his novels comments that he would not have been as brave as the Baudelaire children had he been in their situation. He also confesses that he has done things that were not noble, such as the original theft of the sugar bowl from Esmé Squalor. He implied he had a part in the murder of Count Olaf's parents, and that Beatrice was involved as well.
In the narration of the books, Snicket describes doing many unusual things in his free time, including hiding all traces of his actions, locating new hiding places, considering suspicious dishes, and researching the perilous lives of the Baudelaire children. He claims to often write himself citations for bravery in an attempt to cheer himself up, but these attempts are always in vain.
Handler publishes most of his children's novels under the pen name, including the thirteen-book A Series of Unfortunate Events series , the four-book All the Wrong Questions series, The Baby in the Manger, The Composer Is Dead, , The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming, The Lump of Coal, and 13 Words.
As Snicket, Handler wrote an Foreword and endnotes for The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily by Dino Buzzati, his favorite children's book, that referenced A Series of Unfortunate Events. Noisy Outlaws, a 2005 McSweeney's short story compilation, has an introduction and unfinished short story attributed to Lemony Snicket.
Snicket also wrote The Composer Is Dead, a murder mystery designed to introduce young readers to the instruments of the orchestra; it was previously produced as an orchestral work by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, with Handler narrating as Snicket, and a recording of the performance is to be included with every copy of the expanded book. HarperCollins Children's Books – Parents Book Buzz , harpercollinschildrens.com. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
In 2013, Snicket wrote the introduction to the 1989–1990 edition of Fantagraphics Books' The Complete Peanuts series.
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