The Bad Beginning

• By Daniel Handler AKA Lemony Snicket
  
• The last name Baudelaire is a reference to Charles Baudelaire, a French poet. An excerpt from his poem "Le Voyage", from Les Fleurs du Mal, appears in The End.
• Mr. Poe's surname, Poe, and the names of his children, Edgar and Albert, are obvious allusions to Edgar Allan Poe.
• Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire share their names with Claus and Sunny von Bülow, who were involved in a famous court case of the 1980s; the district attorney who defended Claus was named Violet.
• Violet Baudelaire is also possibly a reference to a famous crime; she shares her given name with Violet Sharpe, a suspect of the Lindbergh kidnapping.
• Beatrice is likely a reference to Beatrice Portinari, the unrequited love of Dante Alighieri.

from: wikipedia