Lemony Snicket Books in Order
Lemony Snicket has written 33 books, published between 1999 and 2021. The first book is The Bad Beginning (1999) and the newest is Poison for Breakfast (2021). Publication order is the reading order below.
Daniel Handler books in order are published under that pen name.
- Books
- 33
- Published
- 1999–2021
- Confirmed
- 25 of 33 titles
- Pages on record
- 2,880 in 18 of 33 books
- Reading time
- 48–72 hours
Reading time is an estimate, not a recorded figure: 2,880 pages at 300 words a page, read at 200–300 words a minute, covering the 18 of 33 titles with a page count on record.
Lemony Snicket is the pen name of Daniel Handler, an American writer, musician and television producer born February 28, 1970. A Series of Unfortunate Events and All the Wrong Questions are the children's series published under the Snicket name. A Series of Unfortunate Events became a film in 2004 and a Netflix series that ran from 2017 to 2019. Handler publishes adult novels and a stage play under the real name. The catalogue records 33 books from The Bad Beginning (1999) to Poison for Breakfast (2021), with orphans, siblings and humorous stories among the subjects.
A Series of Unfortunate Events follows the Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, after a fire kills their parents. Their relative Count Olaf schemes to steal their inheritance, and the children move through a series of guardians while trying to uncover a secret society and learn what caused their parents' deaths.
How many Lemony Snicket books are there?
Lemony Snicket has 33 books, released between 1999 and 2021. They include 5 series and 8 titles listed outside any series.
Lemony Snicket Books in Publication Order
The table lists all 33 Lemony Snicket books in the order they were published, with the release year, the page count where one is on record, and how many independent book listings confirm each title. Catalogue data as of September 2026.
- 11999–3/4
- 21999–4/4
- 3The Wide Window2000 · confirmed 1/42000–1/4
- 420001943/4
- 5The Austere Academy2000 · confirmed 1/42000–1/4
- 6The Ersatz Elevator2001 · confirmed 1/42001–1/4
- 7The Vile Village2001 · confirmed 1/42001–1/4
- 820012723/4
- 9Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized AutobiographyA Series Of Unfortunate Events Companion #12002 · 212 pages · confirmed 3/420022123/4
- 10The Carnivorous Carnival2002 · confirmed 1/42002–1/4
- 11The Slippery Slope2003 · confirmed 1/42003–1/4
- 1220041763/4
- 13The Grim Grotto2004 · confirmed 1/42004–1/4
- 1420053533/4
- 1520061763/4
- 162006723/4
- 17The End2006 · confirmed 1/42006–1/4
- 182007243/4
- 192007483/4
- 2020071683/4
- 212008–3/4
- 22The Composer Is Dead (As: Lemony Snicket)Lemony Snicket Standalone Novels #42009 · 36 pages · confirmed 3/42009363/4
- 232010–3/4
- 242012–3/4
- 2520132773/4
- 262013403/4
- 2720142593/4
- 2820143253/4
- 292014–3/4
- 302015–3/4
- 312017403/4
- 322017403/4
- 3320211683/4
Lemony Snicket series and characters in order
The character linked below has its own reading-order page.
Lemony Snicket books grouped by series
Each title below is a row in the publication-order table above. A group whose heading is a link has its own reading-order page; the other groups have no page of their own on this site.
Daniel Handler Picture in order
7 booksA Series Of Unfortunate Events books in order
5 books by Lemony SnicketA Series Of Unfortunate Events Companion in order
5 booksAll The Wrong Questions in order
5 booksLemony Snicket Standalone Novels
2 books2 titles published under this heading without a numbered place in a series.
Lemony Snicket Picture in order
1 bookStandalone books
8 books8 Lemony Snicket titles here are not listed as part of any series.
Do you have to read Lemony Snicket books in order?
You only need to read Lemony Snicket books in order within each series: the books listed here span 5 separate series, and each series has its own publication order.
Where to start with Lemony Snicket
Start with The Bad Beginning (1999), the first A Series Of Unfortunate Events book. It is also the earliest catalogued title.
What is the newest Lemony Snicket book?
Poison for Breakfast (2021) is the newest Lemony Snicket book released so far.
Is there a new Lemony Snicket book coming?
No next Lemony Snicket book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.
Lemony Snicket at a glance
- Paused
- No new Lemony Snicket title has appeared for 5 years. The last was published in 2021.
- Release pace
- Lemony Snicket books have appeared more than one a year on average.
- Length
- 2,880 pages across the 18 of 33 books with a recorded length, a median of 172 pages each.
- Busiest decade
- Most Lemony Snicket books, 20 of 33, were published in the 2000s.
- Corroboration
- 1 of the 33 titles appear in all four independent book listings, and 25 in at least three.
What the Lemony Snicket books are about
24 of the 33 Lemony Snicket books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: children's fiction is tagged on 17 of 24. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.
- Children's fiction 17 of 24 books
- Humor 13 of 24 books
- Brothers and sisters 6 of 24 books
- Orphans 5 of 24 books
- Apprentices 4 of 24 books
- Mystery & detective 4 of 24 books
- Juvenile literature 3 of 24 books
- Anecdotes 2 of 24 books
- Criminal investigation 2 of 24 books
- Quotations 2 of 24 books