yep

Here's a description of A Series of Unfortunate Events someone posted on the Freakonomics blog. I'd say it's pretty apt:

"I’d compare them to an effort by Umberto Eco and Edward Gorey to condense all Victorian (and then some) fiction into a postmodern mystery series for Middle-Schoolers, if you can picture such a thing."

If you still haven't read Lemony Snicket's oeuvre, you are missing out.