The Wide Window characters

Appears from the start

The eldest Baudelaire, a fourteen-year-old inventor who ties back her hair to think and improvises devices to get her family out of danger. Having survived Count Olaf twice and lost two guardians, she remains the steady, protective leader of her younger siblings as they are moved to yet another home.

Appears from the start

The middle Baudelaire, a twelve-year-old with glasses who reads voraciously and recalls what he learns. His knowledge has repeatedly saved the children, and he stays alert for Count Olaf, whom he no longer trusts any disguise to hide.

Appears from the start

The baby of the family, who speaks in short exclamations her siblings understand and whose four sharp teeth can bite through almost anything. Small but determined, she helps her brother and sister however she can amid the family's ongoing misfortunes.

Appears from the start

The greedy, murderous actor determined to steal the Baudelaire fortune, recognizable by his single eyebrow and the eye tattooed on his ankle. A relentless master of disguise, he has already murdered to reach the children's money and escaped capture twice, and the orphans expect him to appear again in some new false identity.

Appears from the start

The coughing banker who oversees the Baudelaire fortune and keeps relocating the orphans to new guardians. Kind in intention but hopelessly credulous, he rarely believes the children's warnings until it is too late.

Appears from the start

The children's new guardian, the widow of a relative, who lives in a rickety house perched on stilts high above Lake Lachrymose. Obsessed with correct grammar, she is also gripped by countless fears, dreading such harmless things as the stove, doorknobs, and the telephone. Timid and easily frightened, she keeps her home cold and cheerless because she is afraid of the radiator, and her nervousness leaves the children feeling far from safe.

First appears in chapter 3

A sinister sailor the family meets near Lake Lachrymose, distinguished by an eye patch and a wooden peg leg, who runs a sailboat rental business. Smooth-talking and eager to ingratiate himself, he showers attention on the fearful Aunt Josephine while treating the children with veiled menace.