The Bad Beginning, A Multi-Voice Recording characters

Appears from the start

The eldest of the three Baudelaire children, fourteen years old and a gifted inventor. When she is thinking through a problem she ties her long hair up with a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes, and she can improvise useful devices from whatever is at hand. Practical, brave, and protective of her younger siblings, she becomes the eldest guardian of the family after tragedy strikes.

Appears from the start

The middle Baudelaire child, twelve years old and a voracious reader who remembers nearly everything he reads. He wears glasses and turns to books for the knowledge that repeatedly helps the children out of danger. Thoughtful and stubborn in defense of what is right, he works closely with his older sister to protect the family.

Appears from the start

The youngest Baudelaire, an infant who speaks mostly in expressive single-word exclamations her siblings understand. Her defining trait is four unusually large, sharp teeth, and she loves to bite things, a habit that proves surprisingly useful. Though tiny and unable to talk clearly, she is alert and determined to help her brother and sister.

Appears from the start

A greedy, cruel actor and distant relative appointed to care for the orphaned Baudelaires. Tall and thin with shabby clothes, filthy hands, a single long eyebrow, and a tattoo of an eye on his ankle, he runs a shabby theater troupe of sinister associates. He has no real interest in the children and cares only about finding a way to seize the enormous fortune their parents left them.

Appears from the start

A banker at Mulctuary Money Management who handles the Baudelaire parents' affairs and is placed in charge of arranging the children's care and guarding their fortune until Violet comes of age. He coughs constantly into a handkerchief and means well, but he is slow, officious, and disastrously quick to trust appearances, leaving the children to fend for themselves.

First appears in chapter 3

A kind high-court judge who lives next door to Count Olaf and takes a warm interest in the Baudelaire children. She owns a large private library and gladly lets them use it. Genuinely fond of them and eager to help, she does not grasp the danger they are in and cannot easily act against the guardian the law has assigned them.

First appears in chapter 6

One of the menacing members of Count Olaf's theater troupe, a large man who has shining metal hooks where his hands should be. He carries out Olaf's threats and helps intimidate and confine the children, serving as one of the villain's most reliable and frightening henchmen.