The Beatrice Letters

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The Beatrice Letters
Book Information
Released	September 4, 2006 (UK) September 5, 2006 (US)
Pages	72pp
Genre	Epistolary fantasy novel
ISBN	ISBN 0060586583

The Beatrice Letters is a book by Lemony Snicket. It is tangential to the children's book series A Series of Unfortunate Events, and was published shortly before the thirteenth and final installment. According to its cover, the book is "suspiciously linked to Book the Thirteenth", although the British edition merely states that it "contains a clue to Book the Thirteenth".

The book consists of thirteen letters, six from Beatrice Baudelaire to Lemony Snicket, six from Lemony Snicket to Mrs. Beatrice Baudelaire, and one from Lemony Snicket to his editor (one of these appears in every book in the main series, but this is the first time such a letter has been incorporated into the plot). However, the two Beatrices, despite sharing a name, are clearly separate individuals, and while Lemony Snicket's letters are plainly written beginning from his childhood and ending shortly before Violet Baudelaire is born, the Beatrice writing to Snicket is apparently writing after the events of The End. The older Beatrice is the one referred to throughout A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket as his deceased love, and her identity as the mother of the Baudelaire children from the series is revealed in The Beatrice Letters, but the younger Beatrice's identity is not directly explained, apart from the statement that she also has some connection to Violet, Klaus, and Sunny (although in The End it is revealed that she is the daughter of Kit Snicket).

The book contains twelve punch-out letters (of the alphabet, as opposed to correspondence, although the ambiguity is intentional), and each is mentioned in different, interesting ways. An example is that the first letter is an E, juxtaposed against a card from Snicket to Beatrice, in which a map Snicket had drawn forms an E. The cardstock letters appear to be an anagram of 'Beatrice Sank'. They may also be arranged to spell other words such as 'A Brae Snicket', which may be referring to one of the letters to Beatrice, or 'Bear a Snicket'.

The Letters

• The first letter is one sent on Lemony Snicket's personal card, made from him when he was being trained in classes by V.F.D.. This card was delivered to Beatrice, in which he had apologized for embarrassing her in front of her friends and invited her to a "good cafe nearby that serves excellent root beer floats". He was eleven years old when he wrote the message on the card, which he noted on the card himself. The card is labeled "Lemony Snicket, Student of Rhetoric". The Letter accompanying the card is an 'E', because there is a map that resembles an 'E' drawn on the card, presumably so that Beatrice can find the cafe to meet Lemony. (LS to BB #1)

• In the second letter, Beatrice Baudelaire, the child adopted by Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire is addressing Lemony, asking for him to please help her search for the three siblings from whom she has been separated. The letter accompanying this letter is an 'E', like the first one, because in the margins an 'E' has been scribbled, presumably Lemony trying to figure out if the letter was forged by "some villainess or other". E. is the V.F.D. intial given to Esme and Eleanora, who both fit the description and are the only reoccurring characters in the Series of Unfortunate Events Series whose names begins with this letter.(BB to LS #1)

• In the third letter, Lemony is contacting Beatrice because he misses her. Several things are revealed here: that V.F.D had a code class--and that Lemony attends this class with O.. It can be assumed that this is Count Olaf, as O. is referred to as a male (which eliminates Olivia Caliban, who is also a V.F.D member and Thursday Caliban's sister.)and is describes as "nothing but an annoyance". This also denotes that Olaf's villainous nature began to form in his early age. It is also established in this letter that "Baticeer" is an angram for "Beatrice", and is also what she is begin trained to specialize in at the school. The letter accompanying this message is an 'N', for the picture that Lemony drew on the letter, which is supposed to represent a mountain, as in the letter he mentions that there is a climbing class of some sort that they will attend. (LS to BB #2)

• In the fourth letter, Beatrice Baudelaire is typing from a typewriter in Lemony Snicket's office, which is described as a "small, dusty office, on the thirteenth floor of one of the nine dreariest buildings of the city". The letter states that she is following a map marked by Lemony in his office to find his location and discover the secrets of her lost family. The letter accompanying this letter is a 'S', for the 'S' shaped Lachrymose Leech paperweight on his desk, although Beatrice does not recognize it. It can be assumed that Violet, Klaus, or Sunny never told her of all of their adventures in detail. (BB to LS #2)

• In the fifth letter, it is revealed that the Duchess of Winnipeg is dead, and that the V.F.D. member R. is her daughter. It is also revealed here that the Daily Punctilio is an untrustworthy source of information, because although Lemony is an "assistant obituary spell-checker", he is not allowed to correct the headline which says "Duchess of Winnipeg is Deaf". He also predicts that "J. will be transferred to the Financial Times, which means that G., that foolish girl, will become the new fashion editor, which means that I will probably be given the position of dramatic critic". While there are too many V.F.D. members to try to determine what the 'J' stands for, the 'G.' most likely stands for Geraldine Julienne, who is revealed in the books series to be a big fan of Esme Squalor's "fashionable" outfits. The letter 'I' accompanies this letter, to stand for the hatpin that Lemony writes is part of Beatrice's costume for a play that she is in entitled "My Silence Knot". (LS to BB #3)

• In the sixth letter, Beatrice is writing Lemony while tracking him. She has followed the trail that he left in his office to a Brae. She ended up trading the ring that she had, which is the same ring emblazoned with an 'R'. This ring belonged the R. in Lemony's letter, who inherited the Duchess of Winnipeg title from her mother. Lemony only left the sheet of paper on which Beatrice wrote the letter. The letter accompanying this letter is a 'K', which is written in the corner of the paper that Lemony left behind.(BB to LS #3)

• In the seventh letter, Lemony is writing to tell Beatrice that he misses her terribly. Lemony stops to say that "I cannot bring myself to argue with E. or G., and in the afternoons I cannot remember to call L. "O" or to call O. "L", and in the evenings I play cards..." We assume this E. this time has to be Eleanora, as that is the only E. that has been mentioned. G. has already been established as Geraldine Julienne. O. (called "L") refers to Olivia Caliban, who ran the Caligari Carnival and called herself "Lulu". It is not clear who is L (called "O"). The letter that comes with this letter is a 'R', as the girl named R., the Duchess of Winnipeg, is delivered this letter before Beatrice receives it. A small note from R. is attached to the letter, that says, "Beatrice--This letter was mistaken delivered to me. Clearly, the bats need better training! Hope you're well. - R." (LS to BB #4)

• In the eighth letter, Beatrice is writing from a Business Letter Writing Class, although it is taught by the same instructor that Lemony took his code writing class with. She also describes the same flat-footed instructor that Lemony did. It can be assumed that she has either found or been found by V.F.D.. She followed Lemony to "the library, where you stood for nearly an hour staring into a glass case containing old documents on display for the 'Staged Poetry: Sonnets by Actors and Actresses' exhibit." This is where Beatrice Baudelaire's--Violet, Klaus, and Sunny's mother--sonnet "My Silence Knot" used to be located. In the note to the author at the end of the book however, Lemony makes it clear that it is no longer there. It had been refiled under Beatrice Baudelaire's name. The letter with this letter is an 'A', for the A that the younger Beatrice Baudelaire--Kit's daughter--was given for submitting her correspondence as a business letter. (BB to LS #4)

• In the ninth letter, Lemony is addressing Beatrice in anguish. Beatrice refused his proposal for marriage, and she wrote him a 200 page book telling him why. Lemony attemps to answer the "thirteen questions you asked me on page 189". There is also a hidden message letter using Sebald Code, which spells out Are you certain your co-star is one of us? It would be assumed that this is Olaf, but later in the letter he is disqualified from this possibility when Lemony writes "I will love you if you marry someone else--your co-star, perhaps, or Y., or even O., or anyone Z. through A., even R.--although I sadly believe it will be quite some time before two women can be allowed to marry--". O., being Olaf, is listed separately from the co-star. The letter with this letter is 'C', for the shape of a lock of hair that Lemony is returning to Beatrice with his letter. (LS to BB #5)

• The tenth letter from Beatrice on the floor above Lemony's office in "one of the nine dreariest buildings in the city". She is once again begging for his attention so that they can solve the mysteries of the Baudelaire orphans together. She says that she has "set up shop here", meaning that the office she sends the letter from is the place in which she does business as a baticeer--another fact about her that makes it seems as though she is following in her namesake's footsteps. She implies that now she's done this because she's met other volunteers and presumably joined the V.F.D.. The letter with this letter was 'T', named for the shape of a tool that Beatrice used to grind a hole in the floor of her office, to slip her letter down to Lemony's. (BB to LS #5)

• The eleventh letter is a telegram from Lemony too Beatrice at the time that she was married to Bertrand Baudelaire, and pregnant with Violet. There is a message of danger sent at the end, but all that can be seen is what looks like a printed 'A', and 'A' is also the letter that accompanies this message. It cannot be confirmed whether or not this message reached Beatrice, as it is stated that she was pregnant with Violet while washed up on the island featured in The End. (LS to BB #6)

• The twelth letter is on a card the same size as the very first letter, the first message that Lemony sent to Beatrice. It is labeled "Beatrice Baudelaire, Baticeer Extraordinare, The Rhetorical Building 14th floor". It is revealed here, since in her previous letter she stated her new office was right above Lemony's, that both of their offices are in the Rhetorical Building, which is apparently one of the "nine dreariest buildings in the city" (see the second letter). This would imply that Lemony worked on the 13th floor, something that would indeed fall in line with the bad luck that he portrays as following himself as well as the Baudelaire siblings. This card holds only a short message asking Lemony to meet with her, because she is in the same restaurant as him. There is no evidence of whether or not Lemony accepted or rejected the message, although the fact that it wasn't ripped in half as Beatrice asked Lemony to do if he didn't want to meet her may be proof that they did meet. The letter with this card is a 'B', for Beatrice, since it's on the card. (BB to LS #6)

• The thirteenth letter is from Lemony to his editor, in which he explains the difficulty of trying to find the sonnet "My Silence Knot". He also explains the difficulty of having to endure the memories with these letters by trying to put them in the right order. He does not sign this letter, like he usually does, and so it is actually considered the final note of the series.

Note: People have questioned whether or not Lemony Snicket ever helped his niece, Beatrice Baudelaire, find the three orphans. The Beatrice Letters contains a poster of Beatrice (the boat) crashing (notice only half of its name plate is there), and on the other side of the poster, is a cave filled with things. IN the lower left corner of the cave, you can see a bowler hat, the one Lemony Snicket wore in many of his pictures. There are also books, including one with pictures of cooking utensils, binoculars, a canteen, a metal box with a lock, pictures of Klaus' glasses and Violet's hair ribbon, and the second half of Beatrice's (the boat) name plate. The items in the cave makes it look like someone had been researching and looking for the Baudelaire orphans. The bowler hat makes it obvious that Lemony Snicket must have been there at some point in time. Also, at the top of the cave, there are bats. Beatrice (Kit's daughter) was a baticeer, as said in her letters. I know bats usually live in caves, but in this picture, it may be a message telling us that Beatrice (Kit's daughter) was there too. So, possibly, Lemony did help Beatrice, in her search for the Baudelaires.

The Final Letter to the Editor

This Letter to the Editor is the thirteenth letter in the book, typed on old paper that has been folded several times. He does not sign this one as per usual, which is strange and has led several people to believe that an impostor has written it.

Today To My Kind Editor

To My Kind Editor,

As you know, it is not easy breaking into a warehouse. One never knows if the warehouse owner posted signs reading "Bewatre of Dog" just to frighten prowlers, or if there is really vicious dog nearby, or if "Dog" is merely the owner's nickname for a deep pit, and it is the most disconcerting to find that you have brought seaks marinated in sleeping potions when you should have brought a sturdy pair of folding stilts, or vice versa. Once inside the warehouse, one can only hope that it has been organized sensibly--otherwise it may take all night just to find the room in which documents from long-ago library exhibitions are stored, and all morning to find the proper file. I looked under "Staged Poetry." I looked under "Poetry, Staged." I looked under "Sonnets by Actors & Actresses." I looked under "Actors & Actresses, Sonnets by." I looked under "Fourteen-Line Poems." I looked under "Theatrical Exhibitions." I looked under "Exhibitions Involving Theatricality." I looked under "Drama." I looked under "Melodrama." I looked under "Melanoma." I looked under the floorboards.

Finally, it occurred to me to look under the name of the poet. It is something that should have occurred to me much earlier, but some of the simplest things in life are the most difficult to imagine. Because I loved her so much, for instance, it never occurred to me that there could be more than one Beatrice Baudelaire. It was quite sometime before I received the first of Beatrice Baudelaire's letters that I realized that all of Beatrice Baudelaire's letters could be found in not just the first Beatrice Baudelaire but in the second Beatrice Baudelaire and that perhaps if I gathered the remaining letters of the first Beatrice Baudelaire with the first letters of the remaining Beatrice Baudelaire, then the Beatrice letters could explain the Beatrice letters and even the letters of Beatrice, no matter which letters they are, and no matter what order the letters are in. I immediately began work on the file.

And now, after all this time, I have found the same scrap of paper I had once examined in a glass case--and, years before that, examined in a hallway of the library, with the scrap of paper in the glass case. Sadly, this missing sonnet is like a missing sock--it has been lost for so long that everything else has completely unravelled in its absence. For many years I thought if I collected all these letters and their accompanying ephemera--a phrase which here means "documents and items which I feared has vanished, and may soon vanish again"--I could put all of them in the proper order, as if solving an anagram by putting all of the letters in the right order. But letters are not letters,so the arrangement of letters is not quite as simple as the arrangement of letters, and even if it were, the arrangement of these letters could spell more than one thing, just as there is moer than one Beatrice, and so the mystery could become two mysteries, and each of these mysteries could become two mysteries, until the whole world is engulfed in mysteries, as it is now. No matter what documents you investigate, and what objects you retrieve, you may never answer the questions that are most important to you, but nevertheless, sooner or later you must finish whatever file you have begun.

This file is finished--just when I thought it might finish me. I cannnot stare at these papers any longer, or run my hands along the ink, as my eyes are filled with tears and my fingers are stained and paper-cut. The secrets contained here are like all secrets--dangerous to those who discover them and harmless to those who fail to notice them. For this reason, I recommend that you either destroy this file or make as many copies as possible.

I do not know when I will write you again. I do not dare even to write my initial at the bottom of this letter, as so many letters have been lost. Strange as it may seem, I still hope the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.

With all due respect,
File:Signature.gif
Lemony Snicket

"My Silence Knot"

After the Letter to the Editor, in the back cover of the book, is the page from the play that Beatrice Baudelaire (the mother) had acted in. The page contains the sonnet that Lemony found in the Letter to the Editor, My Silence Knot.

Punch-out Letters

Besides containing letters The Beatrice Letters contain letters; as in alphabet letters. These letters are able to be punched out of the picture which they are in. There is an alphabet letter in between each letter. On each letter there is also the alphabet letter drawn on the letters.

The letters are S, A, B, T, R, A, K, C, E, I, E, N.

By rearranging these letters, it can spell: BEATRICE SANK.

At first it might appear that the letters are referring to is either Beatrice senior (the Baudelaire's mother, maiden name unknown) or Beatrice junior (Lemony Snicket's niece). But it is generally accepted to be referring to The Beatrice, the ones the Baudelaires took to and from the island.

How Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire survived this trip is unknown, but it is known that they made it to shore. It has been revealed that Beatrice junior did in fact survive, but whether she was able to establish contact with Lemony Snicket is not known, either.

However, In "Letters to Beatrice" a boat is shown crasheed against rocks, along with Klaus's glasses and the boats's name plate which is broken in two.