40 Fun Facts About The Miserable Mill

What are the workers in The Miserable Mill paid with instead of money, an arrangement Phil later reads may be illegal?

Coupons are the only wages Sir hands out, and the workers have no money to redeem them with. Phil later reads the town constitution and reports that paying people only this way sounds illegal.

What hides the face of Sir, the lumbermill owner in The Miserable Mill, so completely that it is never seen?

Cigar smoke hangs around Sir's head in a thick cloud, because his cigar never goes out. The narrator admits that neither he nor the Baudelaires will ever find out what the man looks like.

What is the only lunch given to workers at the lumbermill in The Miserable Mill, during a break of five minutes?

Chewing gum is the entire midday meal at Sir's mill, and the break to enjoy it lasts five minutes. Phil explains to the Baudelaires that nothing else will be served until dinner.

Which alias does Count Olaf adopt in The Miserable Mill while posing as an employee of Dr. Orwell?

Shirley is how Count Olaf introduces himself, dressed as a woman, and the Baudelaire sisters recognize him at once. The adults around them, as usual, are completely fooled.

Which word, first shouted by the foreman after an accident, frees Klaus from hypnosis in The Miserable Mill?

Inordinate snaps Klaus awake when the foreman complains about the inordinate cost of a wrecked machine. Violet remembers the word just in time to stop her brother killing Charles.

In The Miserable Mill, what does baby Sunny use to duel Dr. Orwell, who is armed with a sword?

Her teeth are Sunny's only weapon, yet she holds off a grown woman's sword with them. The fight ends when Sir walks into the room and startles the doctor.

Why is the owner of the lumbermill in The Miserable Mill known to everyone, Mr. Poe included, simply as Sir?

Nobody can pronounce it: the children's banker tries the first syllable several times and produces a different sound on every attempt. The man's real name is never given anywhere in the series.

In The Miserable Mill, Dr. Orwell's office near the lumbermill is a building shaped like what?

An eye is the shape of the whole building, and the children notice it as soon as they reach the mill. It matches Count Olaf's tattoo, their first hint that he may already be nearby.

In the book The Miserable Mill, what kills Dr. Orwell when she steps backwards during her duel with Sunny?

A buzz saw is running behind her, and she backs into it when Sir bursts in and surprises her. The television version changed her end to a fall into the mill's furnace.

Dr. Orwell of The Miserable Mill shares her surname with the author of which novel about brainwashing?

Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell's novel of thought control, is the likely inspiration for the hypnotist's name. Her first name simply stretches George into Georgina.

In which gloomy town do the Baudelaires arrive to live with their fourth guardian in The Miserable Mill?

Paltryville is home to Sir's lumbermill, where the three children are expected to work for their keep. The television version shows the town as a burnt-out ruin, which the book never does.

What is the name of the lumbermill where the Baudelaire orphans are put to work in The Miserable Mill?

Lucky Smells is the mill's cheerful name, and the story's hypnotist turns its first word into a weapon. Dr. Orwell uses it as the command that makes the hypnotized Klaus obey orders.

What is the profession of Dr. Georgina Orwell, whose office Klaus visits twice in The Miserable Mill?

Optometrist is her respectable day job, and the foreman keeps breaking Klaus's glasses so that he has to go back to her. Each visit ends with the boy hypnotized.

What job does the disguised Count Olaf claim to hold at Dr. Orwell's office in The Miserable Mill?

Receptionist is the part Count Olaf plays, seated in the hypnotist's waiting room. Sir soon promises to hand the orphans over to this stranger if one more accident happens at the mill.

Which body part must Count Olaf uncover in The Miserable Mill, exposing the tattoo that gives him away?

His left ankle carries the tattoo, and the adults agree to check it only after the children beg them to. The villain first protests that asking a lady such a thing is impolite.

After being unmasked and locked up in The Miserable Mill, how do Count Olaf and his henchman get away?

Out a window they go, after Count Olaf hurls a heavy book through the glass to break it. Phil, standing guard at the door, hears the crash too late to stop them.

In The Miserable Mill, the narrator introduces the friendly lumbermill worker Phil as what kind of person?

An optimist is the narrator's word for Phil, who hunts for a bright side even after a machine badly injures him. He is also the worker who welcomes the children when they first arrive at the mill.

Which dish do the lumbermill workers in The Miserable Mill eat for dinner, their only meal apart from lunch?

Casserole turns up for dinner at Sir's mill, and the workers find it disgusting. The book's own back cover warns readers about it, alongside a hypnotist and a giant pincher machine.

How do the Baudelaires travel to their new home in the opening chapter of The Miserable Mill?

By train: the book opens with the three children riding toward a town they have never seen. Their new guardian turns out to run its mill, and he expects them to work there.

What does Sir decide to do with the Baudelaires at the end of The Miserable Mill, despite Charles's objections?

Sir fires them, saying that trouble follows the orphans everywhere and he wants no more of it. With no guardian left, Mr. Poe has to find the three somewhere new to live.

What does the hypnotized Klaus bring down on a coworker in The Miserable Mill, injuring him badly?

The stamping machine crashes down on Phil when Klaus, still in a trance, is put in charge of it. The foreman's angry outburst about the damage happens to contain the word that wakes the boy.

Which part of Phil's body is crushed in the accident that the hypnotized Klaus causes in The Miserable Mill?

His leg takes the blow, and Phil comes back from the hospital in a cast the same day. Ever cheerful, he remarks that at least it was the left one, since he favors his right.

How does the new foreman in The Miserable Mill deliberately break Klaus's glasses, twice in two days?

The foreman trips him on purpose, and Klaus's glasses break in the fall. Klaus is sent away for a new pair and comes back strangely obedient, and the next day the foreman does it again.

What does the foreman bang together each morning to wake the lumbermill workers in The Miserable Mill?

Metal pots, clanged together in the doorway, serve as the mill's alarm clock. The foreman banging them is new to the job, having replaced Foreman Firstein only a week before the children came.

In The Miserable Mill, what does Klaus leave behind when he gets up for work in a trance, worrying his sisters?

His shoes and socks stay behind, and Klaus marches off to the machines barefoot without seeming to notice. Violet later spots his bare feet at night and knows he is under the spell again.

What is Charles strapped to when Violet and Sunny find Klaus running the mill at night in The Miserable Mill?

A log is where the villains have tied Charles, with the hypnotized Klaus ordered to finish him off. They want the death blamed on the orphans so that Sir will hand them over.

By which wrong name does the hypnotized Klaus address his sister Violet in The Miserable Mill?

Veronica is what Klaus calls her as they leave the hypnotist's office for the second time. To his sisters it is proof that he has been put in a trance again.

Which room did Charles persuade Sir to add to the lumbermill in The Miserable Mill, though it stands almost empty?

A library was Charles's idea, but its shelves hold just three books. One is a history of the mill donated by Sir, one is the town constitution and one was given by Dr. Orwell.

In The Miserable Mill, how is the kindly Charles described in relation to Sir, the owner of the lumbermill?

His partner is the title Charles holds, though the partnership is lopsided: he irons Sir's shirts and cooks his omelets. He also gives in whenever Sir declares an argument over.

In the book The Miserable Mill, which of Count Olaf's associates is the new foreman in disguise?

The bald man with the long nose is behind the foreman's surgical mask and curly white wig. The television series gave the part to the hook-handed man instead.

What is the name of the cruel new foreman who torments the Baudelaires at the lumbermill in The Miserable Mill?

Flacutono rearranges the letters of Count Olaf, a clue hiding in plain sight on the mill floor. The same alias returns later in the series, attached to a fake surgeon at Heimlich Hospital.

Which British actor reads most Unfortunate Events audiobooks, though the author narrates The Miserable Mill himself?

Tim Curry voices most of the thirteen recordings, but he steps aside for books three to five. On those the author reads in character as the narrator, Lemony Snicket.

Lemony Snicket, the narrator of The Miserable Mill, is the pen name of which American author?

Daniel Handler invented Lemony Snicket as both a pen name and a character inside the story. He later wrote for the television adaptation and served as one of its executive producers.

In The Miserable Mill, what does Klaus try to invent to pull Charles to safety once he wakes from hypnosis?

A fishing rod is Klaus's improvised rescue tool, built while Violet is held back by the villains. It reverses their usual roles, since she is the inventor and he is the reader.

Phil, the cheerful worker from The Miserable Mill, returns as a submarine cook in which later book?

The Grim Grotto finds Phil cooking aboard the submarine Queequeg, having quit the mill after the horrors of this story. Not even a shark bite dents his good mood there.

Which woodland surrounds the town in The Miserable Mill and supplies Sir's lumbermill with its trees?

Finite Forest rings the town, and its name reads like a quiet joke: finite means limited, which is bad news for a mill that lives by cutting trees down.

The last picture in The Miserable Mill shows two pupils boarding a bus, hinting at which family in the next book?

The Quagmires, Duncan and Isadora, are understood to be the two figures in the background, bound for the school where the Baudelaires meet them. Sir stands in the same picture, watching the villains flee.

Who plays the hypnotist Dr. Georgina Orwell in the 2017 television adaptation of The Miserable Mill?

Catherine O'Hara plays the villainous hypnotist, years after appearing as the kindly Justice Strauss in the 2004 film. On screen her character is also Count Olaf's former girlfriend.

Which actor plays Sir, the gruff lumbermill owner, in the 2017 television adaptation of The Miserable Mill?

Don Johnson plays Sir, and unlike the book the series lets viewers see the character's face. His version runs away when the mill's workers rise up against him.

Which tools does Phil show the Baudelaires how to collect on their first morning of work in The Miserable Mill?

Debarkers are used to scrape the bark from felled trees, an early job the Baudelaires are given. The work is described as so tiring that their backs feel ready to break.