A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017): Books vs. Series
Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017–2019) adapts all 13 of Lemony Snicket’s novels across three seasons. The Baudelaire siblings evade Count Olaf while investigating their parents’ connection to a secret organization.
From Books Adapted
Which books each season covers
All thirteen books, in order, in three seasons
The Netflix series follows the books in order. Each book gets two episodes, except The End, which gets one.
| Season | Books | Episodes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Books 1 to 4: The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, The Miserable Mill | 8 |
| 2 | Books 5 to 9: The Austere Academy, The Ersatz Elevator, The Vile Village, The Hostile Hospital, The Carnivorous Carnival | 10 |
| 3 | Books 10 to 13: The Slippery Slope, The Grim Grotto, The Penultimate Peril, The End | 7 |
| A guide, not an exact match: shows move scenes and storylines between books and seasons. | ||
Every one of the thirteen books made it to the screen.
What changed from the book
The grown-ups get their own storylines
The series gives some of the adults stories the books don't have, like Jacquelyn, Mr. Poe's secretary, and Larry, the waiter. Sonnenfeld and Handler came up with them together, so the show can follow what's going on around the Baudelaires, not only what the children see.
How it was adapted
Lemony Snicket walks through his own story
In the books, the narrator keeps stepping in to define words, explain what's happening and warn you about what's coming. The series puts him on screen: Patrick Warburton's Snicket stands in the scenes he's describing, telling the story from years later.
Director Barry Sonnenfeld wanted the narrator out in the world, not stuck in a voice-over. Daniel Handler, who writes as Lemony Snicket, suggested Warburton for the part.
The books, in order
Details
- Author
- Daniel Handler
- Year
- 1999
- Pages
- 176
- Audiobook length
- 2 hr 29 min
- Narrator
- Tim Curry
- Series
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 1
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire lose their parents and home in a fire, leaving a fortune they are too young to control. Their new guardian, Count Olaf, puts them to work in his filthy house and recruits them for a play with his theater troupe. When the siblings discover what he intends the performance to accomplish, they must find a way to stop him without help from the adults responsible for their care.
Details
- Author
- Daniel Handler
- Year
- 1999
- Pages
- 168
- Audiobook length
- 3 hr 11 min
- Narrator
- Tim Curry
- Series
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 2
Uncle Monty welcomes the Baudelaire children into a house filled with reptiles and begins planning an expedition to Peru that will include all three of them. For the first time since their parents died, they have a guardian who enjoys their company and values their talents. Then Monty hires an assistant the children recognize as Count Olaf, and their warnings fail to convey just how dangerous the newcomer is.
Details
- Author
- Daniel Handler
- Year
- 2000
- Pages
- 240
- Audiobook length
- 3 hr 4 min
- Narrator
- Lemony Snicket
- Series
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 3
Aunt Josephine fears almost everything, yet her home above Lake Lachrymose is supposed to keep the Baudelaires safe. When a sailor calling himself Captain Sham wins her trust, the children recognize Count Olaf beneath his disguise. Josephine’s disappearance leaves behind a note whose strange grammatical mistakes may offer their only chance of avoiding another spell in his custody.
Details
- Author
- Daniel Handler
- Year
- 2000
- Pages
- 208
- Audiobook length
- 2 hr 56 min
- Narrator
- Lemony Snicket
- Series
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 4
At Lucky Smells Lumbermill, the Baudelaires must earn their keep operating dangerous machinery while their new guardian promises protection from Count Olaf. After breaking his glasses, Klaus visits a nearby optometrist and returns behaving strangely, with gaps in his memory. As accidents put both the workers and the children’s place at the mill at risk, Violet and Sunny investigate what happened during his appointment.
Details
- Author
- Daniel Handler
- Year
- 2000
- Pages
- 235
- Audiobook length
- 3 hr 15 min
- Narrator
- Lemony Snicket
- Series
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 5
Prufrock Preparatory School gives the Baudelaires a shack to sleep in, an exhausting set of rules, and a classmate determined to humiliate them. Friendship with fellow orphans Duncan and Isadora Quagmire makes school more bearable, until Count Olaf arrives posing as the new coach. His nightly training sessions leave Violet and Klaus too tired to study, threatening to get them expelled and delivered back into his hands.
Details
- Author
- Daniel Handler
- Year
- 2001
- Pages
- 272
- Audiobook length
- 4 hr 23 min
- Narrator
- Tim Curry
- Series
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 6
The Baudelaires move into the penthouse of Jerome and Esmé Squalor, where even ordinary household decisions depend on what is fashionable. Their search for the kidnapped Quagmire children leads them toward a society auction and an auctioneer they recognize as Count Olaf. An unexplained extra elevator door offers a possible clue, but investigating it means venturing far below the apartment without a trustworthy adult beside them.
Details
- Author
- Daniel Handler
- Year
- 2001
- Pages
- 256
- Audiobook length
- 4 hr 17 min
- Narrator
- Tim Curry
- Series
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 7
A village agrees to raise the Baudelaires collectively, then assigns them everyone’s chores and subjects them to thousands of rules. Living with Hector, the timid handyman, they find scraps of poetry that may have come from their missing friends. When the villagers announce that Count Olaf has been captured, the children realize the prisoner is someone else and that the town’s harsh justice could endanger them all.
Details
- Author
- Daniel Handler
- Year
- 2001
- Pages
- 272
- Audiobook length
- 4 hr 12 min
- Narrator
- Tim Curry
- Series
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 8
Wanted for a murder they did not commit, the Baudelaires take refuge among volunteers at the unfinished Heimlich Hospital. Work in its records room gives them access to files that could explain their parents’ deaths, but reading those files means betraying the librarian who has trusted them. Their search becomes more urgent when Count Olaf and his associates arrive at a hospital where nobody seems to know who is in charge.
Details
- Author
- Daniel Handler
- Year
- 2002
- Pages
- 286
- Audiobook length
- 4 hr 50 min
- Narrator
- Tim Curry
- Series
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 9
Following Count Olaf to Caligari Carnival, the Baudelaires disguise themselves as sideshow performers to learn why he keeps consulting its fortune-teller. Madame Lulu appears to know things about their family that nobody has explained to them. Remaining undercover lets the children investigate her sources, but it also places them among the performers Olaf plans to use in a new attraction involving hungry lions.
Details
- Author
- Daniel Handler
- Year
- 2003
- Pages
- 352
- Audiobook length
- 6 hr 1 min
- Narrator
- Tim Curry, Stephin Merritt
- Series
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 10
Violet and Klaus are stranded in the Mortmain Mountains while Sunny remains Count Olaf’s captive. As they climb toward her, an encounter with a mysterious scout points them toward the headquarters of V.F.D. Sunny, meanwhile, listens to the villains’ plans, giving the siblings two urgent tasks: reunite their family and discover what connects their parents to the organization whose initials keep appearing along their route.
Details
- Author
- Daniel Handler
- Year
- 2004
- Pages
- 352
- Audiobook length
- 5 hr 59 min
- Narrator
- Tim Curry
- Series
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 11
Aboard the submarine Queequeg, the Baudelaires join Captain Widdershins and his stepdaughter Fiona in searching for a missing sugar bowl. Its importance remains unexplained, but both their new allies and Count Olaf are determined to find it. Following underwater clues takes the children into a grotto where poisonous fungus turns the search into an immediate struggle to keep one another alive.
Details
- Author
- Daniel Handler
- Year
- 2005
- Pages
- 368
- Audiobook length
- 6 hr 26 min
- Narrator
- Tim Curry
- Series
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 12
Kit Snicket sends the Baudelaires to Hotel Denouement as undercover concierges ahead of a gathering of V.F.D. volunteers. Moving between rooms, they encounter former guardians, enemies, and strangers whose loyalties are difficult to judge. Their assignment is to observe and report, but conflicting requests from the guests force them to act before they can be certain whom they are helping.
Details
- Author
- Daniel Handler
- Year
- 2006
- Pages
- 368
- Audiobook length
- 5 hr 52 min
- Narrator
- Tim Curry
- Series
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 13
A storm strands the Baudelaires and Count Olaf on an island whose residents claim to have abandoned the troubles of the outside world. Their leader, Ishmael, offers the children shelter in exchange for obedience to the community’s customs. As objects and people wash ashore, the siblings discover that this apparent refuge has secrets of its own, including links to the parents they have spent their journey trying to understand.
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