So, I’ve done a couple more ASOUE timelines, this time covering the content of The Beatrice Letters. The letters aren’t properly dated, but you can piece together a reasonable timeline for how they fit together by following some context clues. This timeline isn’t canonical by any means, but it’s fun to try and make sense of the chaos!
What is interesting about this timeline is that, if my dates are correct, Beatrice spends about 2 years looking for Lemony before she catches up to him. This actually makes sense, considering Beatrice appears to get progressively more indoctrinated into V.F.D. throughout her letters.
LS to BB timeline to follow.
BB to LS
#1 - “Wednesday” There aren’t really any good clues for dating this one. Beatrice is clearly literate so I don’t think it is much earlier than the other letters. For the purposes of this timeline I placed it at around January of year one.
#2 - “February 28″ Beatrice discovers the location of Lemony’s hiding place.
#3 - “4 p.m.” Beatrice has found Lemony’s hiding place too late and it has been “a hard year’s journey … after the path you left for me in your office.” So this letter is approximately 12 months after the second, “just as the sleet season began.”
#4 - “Victoria Day Eve” Victoria Day is a Canadian public holiday celebrated on the last Monday preceding May 25. This is likely about 3 months after letter #3.
#5 - “Midway through the Days of Awe” The Days of Awe are a Jewish period of introspection that runs from Rosh Hashanah (typically around late September) to Yom Kippur (typically around early October). This puts letter #5 about 4 months after letter #4.
#6 - “Cocktail Time” I have no idea when exactly this letter was written. I’ve ballparked it at about 3 months after the fifth letter, or about 24 months (a full 2 years) after the first letter. Beatrice is 10.
Book 1 - Book 13, Chapter 13 = 129 days; Chapter 14 = 1 year
Total: 494 days (about 1 year and 4 months)
With my second read of ASOUE I’ve been trying to determine how many days/months the series covers. I pieced together this timeline based on how much time the Baudelaires spend with each guardian (with approximately 5-7 days between each to account for the time Mr. Poe spends locating a new guardian), and how much time they spend on the run after Book 7.
The number of days beneath the title of each book indicates how many days that book covers. Numbers in italics are approximations, numbers in bold are precise calculations based on the events of the books.
Book 1: 10 days (approximately)
“You’ve only been there a few days.” Mr. Poe
“Friday, the day of the performance, was only a few days off.”
Book 2: 10 days
“In ten days we leave for Peru.” Uncle Monty
Book 3: 7 days
“Hurricane Herman is expected to arrive in town in a week.” Cabdriver
Book 4: 16 days (approximately)
“After a few days of tearing the bark of the trees, the debarkers were put back in their corner.”
“After a few day of sawing, Foreman Flacutono ordered Phil to start up the machine.”
The Baudelaires are at Lucky Smells for three stages of the logging process, each about 5 days.
Book 5: 21 days (approximately)*
“So they were quite distressed on Friday when the Quagmires informed them that Prufrock prep did not have weekends.”
“The Baudelaires could never remember exactly what day it was, so repetitive was their schedule.”
“This made a grand total of nine S.O.R.E. sessions.”
It’s hard to pin down how long the Baudelaires were at Prufrock Prep. My guess is around three weeks (see note at the bottom of this post).
Book 6: 7 days (approximately)
“And, for the Baudelaire orphans, their first few days with the Squalors were one of the most mixed bags they had yet encountered.”
In addition to the first few days they spend with the Squalors, the Baudelaires spend one day searching for Count Olaf in the apartment and then one day at the In Auction.
Book 7: 4 days
“I found [Isadora’s first couplet] today.” Hector (first day)
“Are you forgetting how many chores we have ahead of us today?” Hector (second day)
“We will burn Count Olaf at the stake right after breakfast.” (third day)
“We can’t simply burn people at the stake whenever we want ... How about tomorrow afternoon?” (fourth day)
“I just remembered, it’s my birthday. I’m thirteen today.” Klaus
Book 8: 3 days
“It was night, and after working all day in the Library of Records, the Baudelaire orphans had made themselves as comfortable as they could.” (first day)
“In the morning . . . they walked to the completed half of Heimlich Hospital.” (second day)
“Today is a very important day in the history of the hospital. In precisely one hour, a doctor here will perform the world’s first cranioectomy on a fourteen-year-old girl.” Mattathias (third day)
Book 9: 2 days
“At last the sun rose . . . The three children watched the caravan slowly fill with light.” (first day)
“First thing tomorrow morning, Madame Lulu will consult her crystal ball again, and tell me where the Baudelaires are.” Olaf (second day)
Book 10: 2 days
“In the very early hours of the morning . . . the youngest Baudelaire found herself struggling.” (first day)
“The two white-faced women were standing just outside their tent and stretching in the morning sun.” (second day)
Book 11: 2 days
“Tonight, the only dessert we have is gum.” Phil (first day)
“We have to get back to the Hotel Denouement before Thursday, and it’s Monday already!” Esme (second day)
“I turned fifteen sometime when we were in the grotto, and I forgot all about it.” Violet
Book 12: 2 days
“I wish we had more time to talk, but it’s already Tuesday.” Kit (first day)
“By sunset the hotel and all the other buildings in the city were a distant, far-away blur.” (day two)
Book 13: 7 days (approximately)
“The following morning, the only things the Baudelaires had seen were the quiet, still surface of the sea and the gray gloom in the sky.”
“At the top of the slope was an outrigger . . . which looked nearly finished, as if Decision Day were arriving soon.”
“The days passed, and the Island remained a safe if bland place for the siblings.”
Chapter 14: 1 year
“Because no castaways had arrived in the year, they had little news of the world.”
UPDATE: Thanks, everyone, for all of the lovely responses! I’m just happy to find out that I’m not the only person in the world who finds these things interesting! -@joannarachel
*Some of you have pointed out that, in his letter to the editor at the end of The Miserable Mill, Lemony Snicket says that his manuscript for book 5 describes “the children’s miserable half-semester as a boarding school.” This would put the Baudelaire’s time at Prufrock Prep at somewhere between 5-8 weeks. However, despite this information, I’ve ultimately decided to keep my estimate for the length of The Austere Academy at three weeks for a couple of reasons:
1. At the beginning of the book Nero says, “Our regular gym teacher, Miss Tench, accidentally fell out of a third-story window a few days ago, but we have a replacement, who should arrive shortly.” We know that the Baudelaires spent about ten days at PP after Olaf showed up because he forced them through 9 S.O.R.E. sessions (one each night), plus the session when the Quagmires impersonated the Baudelaire children. If the Baudelaires were at PP a total of around 42 days (about a half semester), that means it took Olaf around 32 days to get there, although he was hired and promised to arrive “shortly” after the Baudelaires were enrolled.
2. There’s already some ambiguity about how much time the term “semester” covers in ASOUE. The Quagmires tell the Baudelaires that they lived in the Orphan Shack for “three semesters;” although, if Quigley’s account (from book ten) of the fire that burned down their home is correct, the Quigley mansion burned down shortly after the events of The Reptile Room, roughly six weeks ago. Either one of the Quagmires is lying (which is possible), or “semesters” in ASOUE are about two weeks long. My point is, there isn’t a lot of consistency about the length of school terms.
If you’d like to see the timeline edited to include a half semester at PP, I’ve uploaded an example here http://tinyurl.com/hdo5pjw.
Rereading ASOUE and ATWQ has me thinking about the Snicket Universe timeline in the context of the generation(s) each character belongs to. I’ve divvied the characters up by generations and placed some birthdays and events on a timeline in relation to their distance to the schism. Most dates are estimates, but everything that I have seems to match up fairly well with the books. Not all of the characters listed are necessarily members of V.F.D., but all have some relationship to the V.F.D. conspiracy.
The only date that I’m totally guessing on is Ishmael’s birthday, but I figure he had to be born at least 30 years before the schism.
Anyway, this chart is still a work in progress. Will update as I go.
