List of A Series of Unfortunate Events locations

This is a list of fictional locations that appear in the children's book series A Series of Unfortunate Events, by Lemony Snicket.
Geographic locations
Hinterlands
The Hinterlands are a fictional area of wasteland/desert appearing in The Vile Village, The Hostile Hospital, and The Carnivorous Carnival. They are famous for their magnificent blue sunsets. The Baudelaires mention that they had always wanted to see the Hinterlands and were promised by their parents that they would visit one day. The Hinterlands are also home to the Caligari Carnival, which is the only attraction in the area. The Caligari Carnival is at the end of Rarely Ridden Road.
Mortmain Mountains
The Mortmain Mountains are a fictional mountain range in The Slippery Slope. The range is first mentioned in The Ersatz Elevator, when Jerome Squalor refers to Mount Fraught, the largest mountain in the range.
The Valley of the Four Drafts, in which the Snow Scouts gather, is in the Mortmain Mountains. The range is also the location of the penultimate safe place for V.F.D. members, the only other being the Hotel Denouement. When The Man With a Beard but No Hair and the Woman With Hair but No Beard started a fire at the penultimate safe place for the members of the V.F.D., the sugar bowl was tossed out a window down the Stricken Stream, which arises on Mount Fraught and flows to the sea.
The mountain range is home to Snow Gnats and V.F.D. Lions.
The range is very difficult to climb, since it consists of sheer drops and plateaux arranged in a staircase. The range is very cold during winter and false spring, with blizzards and ice further hindering climbing. The Snow Scouts are headed by Bruce and they include many important people including formerly Quigley Quagmire, Carmelita Spats, and possibly the children of C.M. Kornbluth and the Duchess of Winnipeg.
(See also List of VFDs.)
Gorgonian Grotto
The Gorgonian Grotto is a fictional cave shaped like a cone featured in The Grim Grotto. The grotto is located below Anwhistle Aquatics, to which it is linked by vertical tunnels.
The name Gorgonian is an apparent reference to gorgons, deadly creatures of Greek mythology. This refers to the presence of the deadly Medusoid Mycelium in the grotto. Medusa was a Gorgon.
The Baudelaire children, accompanied by Fiona, visit the grotto because they believe that the sugar bowl may have been carried into it via its underwater entrance, after having been thrown into the Stricken Stream. They do not find the sugar bowl, but they do find several items washed up on a beach in the grotto which later become useful. It is also mentioned that it has various passageways, and someone was using them when Baudelaires arrived. It is possible that she went to Queequeg, or she took sugar bowl. While visiting the grotto, Sunny Baudelaire becomes infected by the Medusoid Mycelium.
Briny Beach
Briny Beach is a fictional beach where The Bad Beginning begins.
The beach's name is a literary allusion to Lewis Carroll's famous poem The Walrus and the Carpenter of which a verse goes as follows:
::"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
::The Walrus did beseech.
::"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
::Along the briny beach:"
In the first novel, The Bad Beginning, Briny Beach is where the Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, learn from Mr. Poe that their parents have died in a fire which destroyed their home. From then on, the series occasionally mentions the beach when referring to the orphans' ongoing misery and woe. In The Grim Grotto (the eleventh novel), the beach is where the Baudelaires meet Kit Snicket for the first time when she picks them up to take them to Hotel Denouement, leaving behind Mr. Poe, who had come to take the children to the police. This visit, the Baudelaires' second in the series, is alluded to in the "Author's Notes" section of the Rare Edition of The Bad Beginning. These notes also allude to Violet returning to Briny Beach alone for a third time. This, however, does not occur within the series.
The Island
The Island on which most of The End takes place is sometimes called "Olaf Land" because that was the only name given to it (although only used by Count Olaf) as the correct name is unknown. (It is mentioned in The Bad Beginning, but not by name.)It is also partially mentioned in The Ersatz Elevator that Count Olaf might whisk the Quagmires to a certain island.
All things are supposed to return to its shores, including Esmé's fire dress from the Slippery Slope. The true name of the island is unknown. Count Olaf informally names it "Olaf Land" after seeing it for the first time. Believing that the inhabitants are primitive, he thinks they will accept him as king. None of the island's other inhabitants refer to the island as "Olaf Land", and Olaf is actually banished to the coastal shelf by Friday when he attempts to establish himself as king. Ishmael is the island's facilitator but he keeps the secret of V.F.D. from the other islanders. When Bertrand and Beatrice Baudelaire were the leaders of the island, they attempted to create a utopian society there. It is the final resting place of Kit Snicket and Count Olaf.
It is also mentioned in The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition that the island used to have a rule that forbade people from removing its fruit. This may also be a Biblical reference to Adam and Eve.
It is apparent that Lemony Snicket visited this island on a boat, possibly the Prospero, to gather information about the Baudelaire orphans, as the letter to his editor at the back of The Penultimate Peril is a napkin marked with a picture of a boat.
Coastal shelf
The coastal shelf is a landform onto which the Baudelaires and Count Olaf are deposited after they have survived a violent storm. The shelf is littered with junk. The Baudelaires are discovered by a six or seven year old girl named Friday, who takes them to a colony of castaways on a nearby island, leaving Olaf because she thinks he's rude.
After every storm, the islanders search the shelf for wreckage that might be useful. It is said that everything eventually ends up on the island's shores.
Lake Lachrymose
Lake Lachrymose is a very large lake, affected as it is by Hurricane Herman (a hurricane in The Wide Window). One of the notable points of the lake is the leeches that inhabit its waters. If anyone goes into Lake Lachrymose within an hour after eating, the Lachrymose Leeches will smell the food and devour them. This is how Ike and likely Josephine Anwhistle meet their end. There are various features around the lake, including Curdled Cave (which is for sale), a cliff which formerly held Josephine Anwhistle's house, beaches, and the Town of Lake Lachrymose.
The resort town is bustling during good weather, but in the bad weather, things are dead. The Anxious Clown restaurant is of particular note, which supposedly has a V.F.D. member disguised as a waiter saying, "I didn't realize this was a sad occasion." The food is horrible. Some meals include the Extra Fun Family Appetizer (a bunch of things served up together and fried with a sauce), the Surprising Chicken Salad, and Cheer-up Cheeseburgers. Known customers include Mr. Poe and his sister, Eleanora (in The Unauthorized Autobiography), the Baudelaire orphans, Count Olaf (under the disguise of Captain Sham), Jacques Snicket (possibly), and Lemony Snicket, when he had to collect a secret message.
Another important place is Damocles Dock, where the Fickle Ferry docks. Captain Sham's Sailboat Rentals is located here. Other places are the Lavender Lighthouse, marking Curdled Cave's location, a clothing store called Look! It Fits!, the Rancorous Rocks, and the Wicked Whirlpool, the last 3 of which are simply things mentioned, and don't have any importance to the story.
It is known that Captain Widdershins patrolled Lake Lachrymose in his submarine, the Queequeg.
Notably, the word "lachrymose" means "tearful", "piteous", or "mournful". It stems from the Latin word "Lacrimosa". This is significant on at least two levels - firstly, it fits with the series' theme of misery, and secondly (perhaps more importantly), Lacrimosa is a movement of Requiem in D Minor, famously known as the last piece of music he ever penned. Mozart's music is employed by the V.F.D. as a form of code.
Curdled Cave
Curdled Cave is where Aunt Josephine was hiding when Count Olaf, disguised as Captain Sham, forced her to hand over the Baudelaires to him. The Baudelaires go to rescue her, and in order to get her out of the cave Klaus tells her that the cave is for sale. As she is afraid of realtors, she reluctantly agrees to go. It is believed that this could have once been a "safe place", as Kit reveals in The Penultimate Peril that there was a cave used as a safe place until vicious realtors claimed it as their own. This could also be the cause of Aunt Josephine's fear of realtors.
The Finite Forest
The Finite Forest is where the Baudelaires meet misery, as written in the book The Miserable Mill. It is probably the source of wood for the Lucky Smells Lumbermill. Its trees are described as "very tall and had practically no branches, so they looked almost like metal pipes instead of trees" It should be noted that the word, "Finite," means limited, and it is said by Charles in The Penultimate Peril that the Finite Forest is running low on trees..
Municipalities
The city
The city is where the Baudelaires' house was, and where 667 Dark Avenue is, the location of the Baudelaires' sixth guardian, Jerome and Squalor. It is never given a name. It has various districts which correspond to what would be sold there: for example the Fish District would sell fish. Being the place where the Baudelaires grew up, there are attractions that the children distinctly remember, such as the Verne Museum, Violet's favourite museum for inventing, the Abramnovitch bookstore, which is the favourite bookstore of Klaus, and Pincus Hospital, where Sunny was born. In the film, the Baudelaires' letter from their parents is addressed to Boston. The Baudelaires pass through the city in The Penultimate Peril when traveling to the Hotel Denouement.
Village of Fowl Devotees
V.F.D. (Village of Fowl Devotees) is the town where the Baudelaires go to live with Hector. They believe that it is related to the mysterious V.F.D. they are searching for, but in fact there is no connection except for the V.F.D. Carrier Crows. The entire village looks after the Baudelaires as they believe in the aphorism "It takes a village to raise a child."
Paltryville
Paltryville is where the Baudelaires go to live in "The Miserable Mill". Paltryville is surrounded by the dark and gloomy Finite Forest. It is not listed in any guidebook because of its very low population, yet is capable of sustaining an optician's practice. It consists of Patryville Station, Lucky Smells Lumbermill, Dr. Orwell's Optician, and a few shops without windows.
Businesses and facilities
Anwhistle Aquatics
Anwhistle Aquatics is first mentioned in The Grim Grotto. A marine research and rhetorical advice center, (mentioned in The Wide Window), it was moderated by Gregor Anwhistle, ichthyologist and Josephine Anwhistle's brother in law. An article from the Daily Punctilio states that Anwhistle Aquatics was burned down by Fernald, although Snicket discloses to the reader that Captain Widdershins also participated in the center's destruction.
One of Anwhistle Aquatics's roles was to investigate the Medusoid Mycelium. However, when it was burnt down, the Gorgonian Grotto was filled with the deadly fungus that was left behind. It also trained salmon under the Voluntary Fish Domestication program, until the entire fleet was seized by .
It is implied that the sugar bowl once found its way to Anwhistle Aquatics, but had been removed by the time the Baudelaires reached the Gorgonian Grotto.
The Anxious Clown
The Anxious Clown is a fast food restaurant. In The Wide Window, the Baudelaires, Mr. Poe, and Count Olaf (disguised as Captain Sham) eat there. Their waiter, Larry, says, "", a V.F.D. code.
Known customers include Mr. Poe, his sister, Eleanora, the Baudelaire children, and Count Olaf, and Jacques Snicket.
The menu includes the Extra Fun Family (a bunch of things fried together and served with a sauce), Surprising Chicken Salad, and Cheer-up Cheeseburgers (cheeseburgers with the ingredients made into a smiling face).
According to Jacques Snicket in a letter to Lemony in Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, the food there is dreadful.
Café Salmonella
The Café Salmonella is a salmon-themed seafood restaurant mentioned throughout A Series of Unfortunate Events.
It first appeared in The Ersatz Elevator when Jerome Squalor (encouraged by his wife Esmé Squalor) took Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire there. According to Esmé, it is a very "in", or fashionable, restaurant. The café is located in the fish district. All waiters wear the waiter costumes described in Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, using the salmon variety. The interior is completely decorated with salmon. There are also salmon in the flower vases instead of flowers.
All the food served contains salmon, with dishes such as salmon Ice Cream, salmon Pie, and salmon Ravioli. Instead of using ice to keep drinks cool, the restaurant uses frozen chunks of salmon.
It is mentioned that the Café Salmonella captured the V.F.D salmon, which were trained to find forest fires.
Caligari Carnival
Caligari Carnival is a carnival in A Series of Unfortunate Events. It is the primary setting of The Carnivorous Carnival, the ninth novel in the series.
The carnival is owned and run by Madame Lulu, a colleague of Count Olaf's. Among the carnival's assets are a ticket booth, phone booth, several caravans and tents, and a worn down roller coaster.
The carnival could be a reference to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a silent expressionist film that involves a freak show.
The carnival's prime attraction is the House of Freaks, featuring Hugo the hunchback, Colette the contortionist, and Kevin the ambidextrous person, all of whom believed wholeheartedly that they were unfit for the real world.
During the time of The Carnivorous Carnival, a lion pit was added to the carnival. It is believed that the lions mentioned in The Slippery Slope, (Volunteer Feline Detectives), were captured by Olaf from the Mortmain Mountains and brought to Caligari Carnival. The Baudelaire orphans also disguise themselves as freaks to hide out there: Violet and Klaus as Beverly and Elliott the two-headed freak, and Sunny as Chabo the wolf-baby.
The carnival is destroyed by Count Olaf and his , along with Esmé Squalor, to hide the evidence of his having been there. According to The Grim Grotto, the ashes and smoke from the fire are visible across The Hinterlands for days.
It is also mentioned by The Man With a Beard but No Hair and the Woman With Hair but No Beard, in The Slippery Slope, that an important piece of evidence hidden inside a figurine has been sold at Caligari Carnival. Retrospective reading shows that the figurine seller in The Carnivorous Carnival is given unusual emphasis for a character who never appears, but there has been no further mention of this.
Cathedral of the Alleged Virgin
The Cathedral of the Alleged Virgin is a cathedral mentioned in The Hostile Hospital and Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography. While Lemony is writing down the Baudelaire children's stay at the Heimlich Hospital, he mentions that he was for some reason crouching down behind the altar of the Cathedral of the Alleged Virgin, while a friend of his is playing a sonata on the pipe organ to drown out the sounds of his typewriter to not let it be heard by the worshippers sitting in the pews. The mournful melody of the sonata reminds Lemony of a tune his father used to sing while he cleaned the dishes, and refers to the expression that "music has charms to sooth a savage beast". In Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, on the map of the city, it shows the Cathedral the of Alleged Virgin, north-west of Uncle Monty's house, and farther north-west of the Hazy Harbor. It is located on Lousy Lane.
The Daily Punctilio
The Daily Punctilio is a fictional sensationalist newspaper from A Series of Unfortunate Events, a series of novels by Daniel Handler under the pen name Lemony Snicket. It is notoriously inaccurate, frequently getting names wrong and printing stories that bear no resemblance to the truth.
The Daily Punctilio is first mentioned in The Vile Village. From the end of that book, the newspaper's stories follow the Baudelaire orphans everywhere for the remainder of the series. The Baudelaires are forced to go on the run after the Punctilio runs a story saying they (mistakenly referred to as "Veronica, Klyde, and Susie Baudelaire") murdered "Count Olaf" (Jacques Snicket; mistakenly referred to as "Count Omar").
According to The Unauthorized Autobiography, The Daily Punctilio, as well as serving a primary source of news in the series, provides sections of a particular interest such as the Financial Times, which is the only section that Mr. Poe reads, as well as the Music Section, which is what Vice Principal Nero reads, as well as hosting obituaries such as the fictional obituary of Lemony Snicket, despite the fact that he is not dead.
In Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, there are portions of Lemony Snicket's play reviews for the Daily Punctilio. He is fired by Eleanora Poe, chief editor and Mr. Poe's sister, after mocking the acting ability of Esmé Squalor in a play by Al Funcoot (an anagram of Count Olaf). He attempts to publish one last article, but is caught by Eleanora Poe. Also, from portions of the newspaper in The Unauthorized Autobiography, it is implied that Count Olaf or one of his henchmen changed articles that included investigations by volunteers, at least one of which could have led back to Olaf himself.
Finally, the Daily Punctilio seems to have caused problems to V.F.D. that are not directly related to the Baudelaires; for example, Geraldine Julienne writes a series of articles called "Secret Organizations You Should Know About" that describes the organization. In The Unauthorized Autobiography, minutes from a V.F.D. meeting show the members discussing where to move as the location of their current headquarters are once again to be printed in the article. This is the only mentioned information that the Punctilio printed correctly. It is also revealed that a spy was in the midst of V.F.D., possibly Count Olaf and Esme Squalor (referred to as "O" and "E").
Articles and Advertisements
Hard News
(In somewhat chronological order)
:Verifying Fernald's Defection
::An article by Jacques Snicket explaining that burned down Anwhistle Aquatics, discovered in the Gorgonian Grotto.
:Dairy Burns Down
::This article relates how Valorous Farms Dairy, the Snicket mansion, was burned to the ground during a storm, having been "struck by lightning" . There is an illustration which Detective Smith assumes is of the Snicket Fire .
: It was actually burned down by one of Count Olaf's associates dressed in a cow suit.
: It is really of the Baudelaire Fire.
:Ship Departs Early!
::This article relates how The Prospero left Daedalus Dock three hours before schedule, leaving the passengers (including a woman named E ) stranded on the on-ramp. A sailor on the ship shouted out the words "Phase Two " and "Drat!"
: Esmé Squalor.
: Phase Two probably refers to phase two of V.F.D. Disguise Training (Various Finery Disguises).
:Bus Arrives Late!
::This article is only mentioned.
:Arson Suspected in Destruction of Royal Gardens
::An article written by Jacques Snicket concerning the destruction of the city's Royal Gardens. It is removed, apparently by Count Olaf and/or his cohorts.
:Absolutely No Arson or Any Other Suspicious Thing Associated with the Royal Gardens, which Simply Burned to the Ground and Then Were Covered in Dirt Due to Wind, Says Official Fire Department
::An article written by Geraldine Julienne concerning the destruction of the city's Royal Gardens.
:No Poisonous Plants Were Removed from Royal Gardens Prior to Destruction, Official Fire Department Reports
::An article written by Geraldine Julienne concerning the possible removal of plants from the Poisonous Pavilion at the Royal Gardens before its destruction.
: Justice Strauss mentions in The Bad Beginning that she is working on a case involving a poisonous plant and illegal use of someone's credit card.
: In The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition, Lemony Snicket believes that this plant was removed from the Royal Gardens, and implies that Count Olaf possesses it.
:Murder at Lucky Smells Lumbermill!
::This article relates how Count Olaf and a "" were responsible for a murder , and how a volunteer came to investigate the incident. It is removed, apparently by Count Olaf and/or his cohorts.
: Likely, but not stated, to be that of Dr. Georgina Orwell.
Incident at Lucky Smells Lumbermill!
::This article relates how detectives Smith, Jones, and Smithjones investigated the "accidental" death mentioned in the previous article, concluding that the worst thing about the ordeal was that one of the detectives had spilt his coffee .
: A rhyming couplet that appears later suggests that the detective's coat was not stained with coffee, but with ink.
:Twins Captured by Count Omar
::This article relates how Esmé Squalor and the twins Duncan and Isadora Quagmire have been captured by Count Omar .
: Esmé Squalor ran off with Count Olaf of her own volition.
: The Quagmires are triplets.
: Count Olaf.
:Baudelaire Orphans at Large!
::This article relates how the Baudelaire orphans murdered Count Omar and escaped from the Village of Fowl Devotees.
: This time, Jacques Snicket (whom Count Olaf murdered).
====="An Announcement"=====
:Eleanora's Announcement
::Eleanora Poe writes an apologetic article to the readers of The Daily Punctilio for Lemony Snicket's "rude" articles, adding that she has fired him, and he will never again work for them.
:Eleanora's Second Announcement
::Eleanora, apologizing for Snicket's last attempt to publish an article in the Punctilio.
=====The Theater Section: "A Night at the Theatre"=====
:The World Is Quiet Here/One Last Warning to Those Who Try to Stand in My Way Review
::Lemony Snicket complains of how the musical The World Is Quiet Here has been re-done to fit Olaf's scheme, as well as being renamed One Last Warning to Those Who Try to Stand in My Way.
:Snicket's Explanation
::Lemony Snicket tries to explain the real reason that he was fired, which relates to a secret about Eleanora Poe, but his article is cut-off part-way through.
Other Articles
:Book Article
::An article that says the following books are dangerous for children to read:
::::* Ramona Quimby, Age 8, by Beverly Cleary.
::::* Matilda, by Roald Dahl.
::::* Ivan Lachrymose: Lake Explorer, by Vincent Francis Doyle.
::::* Grimm's Fairy Tales, by the Brothers Grimm.
::::* Green Mansions, by W. H. Hudson.
::::* The Coded Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edgar Allan Poe.
::::* I Lost Something at the Movies, by Lena Pukalie.
::::* Nine Stories, by J. D. Salinger.
::::* The History of Lucky Smells Lumbermill, by .
::::* A Series of Unfortunate Events, by Lemony Snicket.
::::* Charlotte's Web, by E. B. White.
::::* Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
The majority of these contain codes, hints, or V.F.D.-related things, and scraps of many of them can be found in The Unauthorized Autobiography.
:Telegram Article
::An article which warns that receiving telegrams can be dangerous.
:Telephone Pole Article
::An article which warns that letting telephone poles stand is dangerous, therefore they should be cut down.
Advertisements
:* An advertisement for three-piece suits at a store that only sells Indian rugs.
:* An advertisement for the Veritable French Diner at 141 Dark Avenue.
The Daily Punctilo's motto, "All the news in fits of print", is a parody of The New York Times motto, "All the news that's fit to print."
Heimlich Hospital
Heimlich Hospital is a hospital and titular location in The Hostile Hospital, a novel of the series A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket.
The hospital is only half completed, one half being fully functional, and the other half being a wooden frame. One half of the lawn is well kept and green, the other half a large plot of dirt. One side has the word 'Heimlich' written across it in fancy gold, while the other has an old piece of a cardboard box with the word 'Hospital' written in ballpoint pen. The completed half is a beautiful white building with carved portraits of famous doctors above the windows. Parts of the hospital include an operating theater, a library of records, patient rooms, and supply closets. The supply closets contain a sink, alphabet soup, rubber bands, doctor's coats, surgical masks, and sometimes a window.
Known wards include the "Stubbed Toe Ward", the "Sore Throat Ward", the "Ear Ward", the "Ward for People with Nasty Rashes", the "Accidentally Swallowed Something You Shouldn't Have Ward", the "Plague Ward", and the "Surgical Ward".
Every day, the Volunteers Fighting Disease sing to the patients in the hospital and give them heart-shaped balloons to cheer them up.
The name Heimlich is a reference to Henry Heimlich, an American physician best known for the Heimlich Maneuver.
Heimlich Hospital is burned down by Count Olaf in the The Hostile Hospital.
Hotel Denouement
The Hotel Denouement is a hotel in series of novels, A Series of Unfortunate Events. The hotel is the "last safe place" for the V.F.D.. It is a large building organized in the same way as a library, by the Dewey Decimal System. This is similar to the organization of the Library Hotel. It is owned by identical triplet brothers, Frank, Ernest and Dewey Denouement, although Dewey remains in the shadows. The Hotel Denouement has exactly 10 floors, organized accordingly with the Dewey Decimal system, from the basement to the rooftop salon (not ranked numerically).
At the end of The Penultimate Peril, the Hotel Denouement is burned down by Sunny Baudelaire to provide a signal to V.F.D. that the meeting planned for Thursday is canceled, as the last safe place is no longer safe. However, Lemony Snicket mentions that the real safe place was safe and never found by the enemy.
The words "HOTEL DENOUEMENT" and "ENTRANCE" on the front of the hotel, as well as the floor numbers, are all in mirror writing. There is a reason for this: the hotel is in front of a reflecting pond, and what appears to be its reflection in the pond is in fact the real safe place, containing many V.F.D. secrets, including information on everyone ever involved or acquainted with the V.F.D. The pond also serves as a signal for the V.F.D, showing to Dewey and Frank that volunteers are on the way. The Hotel was made with wood from Lucky Smells Lumbermill.
Floors
*Basement: Information and general works
*First Floor: "dedicated to philosophy and psychology" (p. 63)
*Second Floor: "for religion", features "a church, a cathedral, a chapel, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, a shrine, a shuffleboard court..." (p. 63)
*Third Floor: "the social sciences", includes "ballrooms and meeting rooms" (p. 64)
*Fourth Floor: "dedicated to language" (p. 64) for foreign guests.
*Fifth Floor: "dedicated to mathematics and science" (p. 64)
*Sixth Floor: "dedicated to technology" (p. 64)
*Seventh Floor: "stands for the Arts" (p. 64)
*Eighth Floor: "reserved for rhetorical guests" (p. 62)
*Ninth Floor. history and geography
*Rooftop Salon.
** This section of the Hotel proves to be very significant. Violet finds Esmé Squalor, Carmelita, and Daily Punctilio reporter Geraldine Julienne here. Later in the novel, the siblings find themselves on the roof of the Hotel with Count Olaf. The children reluctantly join him in his ship - regrettably, as they must leave the caring but relatively unhelpful Justice Strauss as she supposedly perishes along with others in the terrible fire of the Hotel Denouement.
Hotel Preludio
Hotel Preludio is a fictional hotel in A Series of Unfortunate Events. It is only mentioned in The Penultimate Peril to be a place the Baudelaires stayed when their parents were still alive. Kit Snicket regards it, in the same book, to be "a lovely place". The Penultimate Peril states that it is still standing, along with a list of its amenities. It makes no appearance in the books and is not portrayed in the film, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Dr. Orwell's Office
Dr. Orwell's Office is where Georgina Orwell practices optometry and hypnotism before her death. The Miserable Mill describes the building as a huge eye, being a mostly brown oval, which contains a white circle then containing a green circle, which in turn contains a round black door. It looks much like Count Olaf's tattoo. In the book the illustration differs slightly from the description. The waiting room inside the office is small, containing a sofa, chairs, and magazines. Dr. Orwell's receptionist, Count Olaf, disguised as Shirley, has his desk in the waiting room.
Last Chance General Store
The Last Chance General Store's front is covered in posters advertising goods sold at the store. Telegrams can be sent from the store (for free if it is an emergency). The owner does not charge the Volunteers Fighting Disease for things.
The store sells fresh limes, canned meat, plastic knives, white envelopes, red wine, leather wallets, sleeping bags and much more. The floor is made of different types of tile, all for sale. The usefulness of such a General Store is undetermined.
The store appears in The Hostile Hospital and in the movie Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events during the events of The Bad Beginning. Count Olaf looks through magazines there as his plan to overrun the Baudelaires with a train fails.
Lucky Smells Lumbermill
Lucky Smells Lumbermill is a sawmill located in Paltryville, and is the site of most of the action in The Miserable Mill.
It is surrounded by a long wooden wall with one gate that has "Lucky Smells Lumbermill" stuck on it with gum. This sign is claimed to be the second most disgusting in the world, after a sign with the word 'BEWARE' spelt out with dead monkeys. In the mill, there is a dormitory, the mill itself, a storage shed, and a building where Sir and Charles work and live.
The mill somewhat resembles a sweatshop - the conditions in the mill are very dangerous, and the workers themselves aren't treated very well. They are forced to live in a windowless room (with the exception of the windows drawn on the walls with a ballpoint pen) in uncomfortable bunk beds. The only meals are chewing gum for lunch (which is only 5 minutes long), and disgusting casseroles for dinner. All workers are paid with coupons - many of which cannot be used because of the lack of money. However, this could change because near the end of the book Phil reads in The Paltryville Constitution that it is illegal to pay workers in coupons. But is never said if the workers were ever paid with money. In the thirteenth book, a place called Lucky Smells Melon Farm is mentioned. It is possible that the Lumbermill was once a melon farm.
There is a library at the mill, but it only consists of three books:
#The History of Lucky Smells Lumbermill (donated by Sir)
#The Paltryville Constitution (donated by the mayor)
#Advanced Ocular Science (donated by Dr. Orwell).
Employees
*Sir - 1st Owner
*Phil - Worker (quit)
*Foreman Firstein - Foreman (retired, no further details given but his departure is consistent with that of people murdered by Count Olaf so that he or his associates can replace them)
*The bald-headed man A.K.A. Foreman Flacutono - Foreman (quit). His name is an anagram of Count Olaf.
*Violet Baudelaire - Worker (fired by mutual agreement)
*Klaus Baudelaire - Worker (fired by mutual agreement)
*Sunny Baudelaire - Worker (fired by mutual agreement)
*Charles - 2nd Owner
Mulctuary Money Management
Mulctuary Money Management is a bank located in the banking district of the city. Mr. Poe, executor of the Baudelaire estate, is Vice President in charge of Orphan Affairs. A teacher from Prufrock Preparatory School, Mrs. Bass, robs the bank prior to The Penultimate Peril.
Prufrock Preparatory School
Prufrock Preparatory School is a dystopian school in The Austere Academy.
Named after The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot, it contains a cafeteria, an administrative building, and a theater where Vice Principal Nero performs his dire violin concerts for six hours at a time. Its motto inscribed on the arch at the entrance to the school is "Memento Mori" which means "Remember you will die". There is a dormitory that is shaped like a giant tombstone (from the Baudelaire's point of view) or a big toe (from Mr. Poe's point of view) and made entirely of stone, in which students have to have a parent or guardian's permission to stay. Inside the dormitory, there is a living room, a game room, and a large lending library. All students have their own room and a fresh bowl of fruit every Wednesday. If parent or guardian's permission is not obtained, which the Baudelaires, the main characters of the series, cannot obtain because they are orphans, then pupils are forced to live in the Orphans' Shack.
The shack, called "The Orphans' Shack" since Duncan and Isadora Quagmire, two orphans, were forced to live there, is made entirely of tin. Bales of hay can be used as beds. Tiny crabs scurry around on the floor. The walls are all painted bright green with tiny pink hearts, and a fungus drips from the ceiling.
The school has a number of bizarre and strict rules, irrationally similar to those of the orphans' previous guardians, thought up by Vice Principal Nero. If a pupil is late for class, their hands are tied behind their back for meals. Being late for a meal means having no cups to drink from (and drinks are poured straight onto the tray). Entering the administrative building is punished by not being allowed to use normal cutlery. Failure to attend Vice Principal Nero's nightly six hour long concerts is dealt with by having to buy Nero a bag of sweets and watching him eat them.
The Baudelaires are sent to live at Prufrock Preparatory in The Austere Academy. While Klaus and Violet are students, Sunny is given the job of secretary to Vice Principal Nero, who is obnoxious and ignorant. Two fellow students and orphans, Duncan and Isadora Quagmire, become friends with the Baudelaires and figure prominently in several of the later books in the series. Carmelita Spats, another student, bullies and teases the Baudelaires and Quagmires mercilessly during their stay at the school, and also returns in several books.
There is some speculation that Prufrock was a V.F.D. training school. Mr. Remora teaches note-taking skills, and Vice Principal Nero mentions that a bowl of fresh fruit is placed in the dormitory every Wednesday, which could be a very subtle reference to the sugar bowl or it may be another version of Verbal Fridge Dialogue.
In The Austere Academy, Count Olaf disguises himself as "Coach Genghis", a new faculty member at Prufrock, in his latest attempt to kidnap the Baudelaires and steal their fortune. Due to a switch around by the Baudelaires and the Quagmires, however, Olaf ends up kidnapping Isadora and Duncan instead. It is also hinted in The Beatrice Letters that the younger Beatrice Baudelaire may have attended this school also.
Several students from Prufrock are kidnapped by Olaf at some point and used in The Grim Grotto as slave labour on his stolen submarine.
Staff
*Vice Principal Nero
*Mr. Remora (eats bananas while making his students memorize every detail of his short stories in Room One; two of his students are Violet Baudelaire and Duncan Quagmire)
*Mrs. Bass (has an obsession for the metric system and has her students measure various items in Room Two; two of her students are Klaus Baudelaire and Isadora Quagmire)
*Sunny Baudelaire (for a short time only, one of the main protagonists of the series)
*Two (later found to be the White-Faced Women in disguise)
*Coach Genghis (Count Olaf in disguise)
*There is also a mysterious librarian character - referred to in Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography - who wears an unusual assortment of clothes and asks "Have you been good to your mother?" a question from the book Ramona Quimby, Age 8, seemingly as a way to identify other V.F.D. members.
Valorous Farms Dairy
Valorous Farms Dairy is the birthplace of Lemony Snicket. Commonly mistaken by others to be a cattle farm, it is in fact a dairy farm and the place to which several of Snicket's letters (titled "Dear Dairy" in an effort to conceal information from potential enemies, who would mistake it for a misspelling of "Dear Diary") are addressed. At least one arson attempt has been made against it by someone disguised as a cow.
The initials of its name suggest that it has some association with V.F.D., and some evidence, such as the letters Snicket sends there, points to them as, at the least, unwitting allies.
It is suggested in Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography that one of Count Olaf's associates hides here disguised as a cow for a period of time while trying to figure out what happened to Dr. Montgomery's reptile collection.
This building is supposedly burnt down, according to a letter from Brett Helquist to Lemony Snicket, in which he encloses a picture suspiciously similar to that of the Baudelaire home in The Bad Beginning.
Vineyard of Fragrant Grapes
The Vineyard of Fragrant Grapes (whose name is often intentionally misspelled Vineyard of Fragrant Drapes) is a vineyard mentioned in Lemony Snicket's autobiography. It is where Snicket and Beatrice were to be married. It is also where Jerome Squalor and Esmé are married.
Snicket's autobiography includes two letters, addressed to Snicket and Squalor, informing both of their wedding arrangements. While the structure of both letters are similar, Snicket's letter contains a message written in the Sebald Code, warning him to avoid the vineyard under the pretense of an anticipated arson attack.
The vineyard is also briefly mentioned in The Carnivorous Carnival as a weekend vacation location for the Baudelaire family prior to Sunny's birth.
Royal Gardens
The Royal Gardens stood in the main city, but were taken down, with an enormous pile of dirt in its place in The Bad Beginning when a banker, Arthur Poe, drives the Baudelaires to their new house, where Count Olaf lives.
Baudelaire Mansion
Quagmire Mansion
Count Olaf's house
Count Olaf's House is a fictional place in the series A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. The house first appears in The Bad Beginning.
The exterior of the house looks very unclean. The bricks are all stained with soot and grime. The entire building sags to the side. Only two small windows are visible from the front. Above the windows, a dirty tower tilts slightly to the left. On the front door, which needs repainting, an image of an eye is carved.
The interior is similar to the exterior, in that the entire house is unkempt and filthy. The house includes a main hallway, a kitchen, a dining room, two bedrooms, and a room in the tower. Every room that has been described in the book is dirty, dimly lit, and unpleasant to be in.
The main entryway has one bare light hanging from the ceiling, a stuffed lion's head nailed to the wall, and a bowl of apple cores on a small wooden table. The bedroom in which the three Baudelaire children stay while living in Count Olaf's house is a small, dirty room with one bed, one cracked window, a pair of curtains, an empty refrigerator box (which the children keep their clothes in), and a small pile of rocks, for their entertainment (as Count Olaf states). The tower room has walls covered in nothing but pictures of eyes, a desk covered with various things, a few chairs, broken bottles of wine on the floor, and a few lit candles.
The Baudelaire children mention in The Bad Beginning that they feel that many eyes are watching them, and notes of Lemony Snicket from the rare edition of The Bad Beginning mention that Count Olaf's house has hidden secret peepholes, cameras, and microscopic lenses.
The Vile Village mentions that the Quagmires are hidden in the tower room for a short while before being hastily moved again.
No one seems to want to even go near the house, or at least not Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, and the next door neighbour Justice Strauss.
Justice Strauss's house
Justice Strauss's house is next door to Count Olaf's house. The house is very clean and inviting, especially in comparison to Count Olaf's. Her home has a garden where the Baudelaire children garden with her during their stay with Count Olaf. The house also has a library with books on a variety of topics, including law, which helps Klaus foil Count Olaf's marital scheme in The Bad Beginning.
Uncle Monty's house
Uncle Monty's House, in Lemony Snicket's book series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, refers to the home of the Baudelaire orphans' late father's cousin's wife's brother, herpetologist Montgomery Montgomery. The house features a strong snake motif, with sculptures, paintings and (in the large front yard) topiaries of serpents. The home includes at least five bedrooms, a kitchen, a foyer, a living room and a large glass conservatory, used to house ; the second book in the series, The Reptile Room, takes its name from this room. At the end of this room there is a library, which is well guarded by the snakes. There are probably more rooms, as the home is rather large. It has many stories, as shown in the illustration.
In The Slippery Slope, it is revealed that the house is connected by a mysterious tunnel to the Quagmire Mansion. The purpose of this tunnel is as yet unknown. It is also mentioned that the house has been burned down.
It was mentioned (by Quigley Quagmire in The Slippery Slope and by Lemony Snicket in The Unauthorized Autobiography) that books concerning V.F.D. were hidden in Dr. Montgomery's library.
Aunt Josephine's house
The home of Josephine Anwhistle is featured in The Wide Window, the third novel in A Series of Unfortunate Events. The structure is built on the edge of a cliff, being held up by a series of stilts and struts. It is of somewhat small size. The main feature of the house is a wide window, which provides a view of Lake Lachrymose and is the site where Aunt Josephine fakes her suicide later in the book. There is also a library that contains books only on grammar. Josephine Anwhistle considers grammar to be the greatest joy in life. The house has only two bedrooms. It also has a dining room, a kitchen, and a living room. Although the building has electricity, gas, central heating, and a telephone line, none of these are used due to Josephine's many phobias.
The house was later blown right off the cliff during Hurricane Herman.
It is mentioned in Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography that the second half of a V.F.D. meeting manuscript is hidden in Ivan Lachrymose: Lake Explorer, under someone's bed. In The Wide Window, when the Baudelaire orphans are looking for an atlas under a bed in Aunt Josephine's house, one of the books under there is Ivan Lachrymose: Lake Explorer. This suggests that the manuscript is indeed hidden there. Also, in The Grim Grotto, Captain Widdershins said he and the crew of the Queequeg saved books from the house that were being destroyed in Lake Lachrymose.
667 Dark Avenue
667 Dark Avenue is a fictional apartment building in the city. In The Ersatz Elevator, the Baudelaire orphans stay at the building's penthouse apartment, home of their new guardians Esmé and Jerome Squalor.
667 Dark Avenue has 66 floors, with one apartment on each floor. (The doorman at 667 only remembers the number of floors as either 48 or 84. 66 happens to be the average of the two numbers) There is one set of elevator doors on every floor, except on the 66th floor, where there is a second set of elevator doors. Despite this, elevator use is said to be not in style, and everyone uses the stairs instead. This reflects the obsession with current trends that permeates the building and its street. When nautical theming comes into fashion, the entire lobby is redecorated to reflect this.
Esmé Squalor may be the perpetrator of some of these trends, considering that elevator disuse helps to hide the use of the second set of elevator doors on the top floor that hide a shaft and underground passageway leading to the former site of the Baudelaire Mansion, which burned down before the events of The Bad Beginning. Another side effect of lift disuse is that, due to flawed acoustic design, conversations from inside the apartments can easily be overheard from the stairwell.
According to Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, there is another floor above the penthouse, but it is never explained how any one would be able to access it, leaving readers to speculate that there may once have been a genuine elevator in the ersatz elevator shaft, allowing for an easier journey from the secret passage.
at the beginning of the novel, it is a literal dark avenue, with all the light blocked out by large trees. Later in the novel, light becomes fashionable again and the trees are chopped down.
*One character states that he can never remember whether there are 48 floors or 84 (the actual number, 66, is the average of these two numbers) - this is supposedly a reference to George Orwell's 1984, a novel written in 1948.
Penthouse
The apartment on the top floor boasts many kitchens, living rooms, dining rooms, breakfast rooms, snack rooms, sitting rooms, standing rooms, halls, ballrooms, bathrooms, and even rooms that seem to serve no purpose at all. Its assets also include 71 bed rooms, 849 windows, and 612 clocks. There is also one large library, which consists of the catalogs for the "In Auctions" and other fashion-conscious books like Boots Were In in 1812.

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