- This tale opens with a disclaimer: If you like sweet and pleasant stories with happy endings, then you'd be better off reading some other book, since this one is kind of a downer.
- That's probably because a whole bunch of downer things happen to the three Baudelaire children—Violet, Klaus, and Sunny.
- It all starts one overcast day when the kids are hanging out at Briny Beach.
- Violet, who is fourteen years old, is skipping rocks and dreaming of things she might invent one day.
- Klaus, who is twelve, is thinking about some of the books he's read while checking out creatures in a tide-pool.
- Sunny—who is just a baby—likes to bite things… and she also notices a mysterious figure coming toward the children on the beach.
- Turns out, this weird person is just Mr. Poe, a banker who constantly coughs and is friends with the Baudelaire family.
- But Mr. Poe has some horrible news: The children's parents are dead. Wow. That is horrible. It seems they died in a terrible fire that burned down their whole house.
- See what we mean? Total downer.
- The kids are in shock, but Mr. Poe tells them that they'll stay with him for a few days until he can get things sorted out for them.
- It seems that Mr. Poe is the executor of their parents' estate, and their parents left behind an enormous fortune that will only pass to the children when Violet comes of age.
- What else can three newly minted orphans do? They head off with Mr. Poe.