With a plot featuring accidental dismemberment, death by leeches, serial arsonists, and rampant child abuse, A Series of Unfortunate Events seemed to descend from the Grimm's Fairy Tales tradition of juvenile fiction. The tragicomic 13-book series, which debuted 15 years ago, chronicled the plight of the three Baudelaire orphans, whose lives become a hamster wheel of misery after their parents die in a mysterious fire.