For seven years, Stephin Merritt (Magnetic Fields) has been recording songs under the band name The Gothic Archies for the audiobooks of A Series of Unfortunate Events, the popular children's series by his friend Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket). The Tragic Treasury: Songs from a Series of Unfortunate Events collects these 13 gloomy and hilarious songs, plus two bonus tracks, including a depressingly upbeat theme song, “We Are the Gothic Archies.” Merritt wrote and recorded all the music, with accordion by Lemony Snicket. The Tragic Treasury was first made available on Nonesuch October 10, 2006, in conjunction with the Friday the 13th release date of Snicket’s 13th and final book, The End, from HarperCollins Publishers. 

The Tragic Treasury includes a song for each one of the 13 books in A Series of Unfortunate Events. For example, “In the Reptile Room” accompanies Book the Second: The Reptile Room. “Things Are Not What They Appear” accompanies Book the Twelfth: The Penultimate Peril, and “Freakshow” accompanies Book the Ninth: The Carnivorous Carnival. The song “Scream and Run Away” (from Book the First: The Bad Beginning), has long been a favorite at Lemony Snicket events, with Handler performing on his accordion and the children in the audience acting out the lyrics, including pretending to fall dead in their seats. For all these songs, Merritt evokes distinct images and characters from the books to re-enact the “unfortunate events” at the core of Snicket’s stories.

The Gothic Archies, whose last release was the 1997 EP The New Despair, is the Goth-bubblegum pop band of celebrated songwriter Stephin Merritt, also of The Magnetic Fields, The 6ths, and Future Bible Heroes. In 1999, the Magnetic Fields' three-CD collection 69 Love Songs established Merritt as one of this generation's most talented songwriters. i, the band's critically acclaimed seventh album, was released on Nonesuch Records in 2004. Other works include Merritt's theater music album, Showtunes (a compilation of three music theater pieces directed by Chen Shi-Zheng: The Orphan of Zhao, Peach Blossom Fan, and My Life As a Fairy Tale) the soundtracks to the films Eban and Charley, and Pieces of April.

The author Lemony Snicket is the creation of Daniel Handler, who also publishes adult books under his own name. Merritt and Handler met years ago, when Handler performed accordion on The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs. Handler felt that Merritt’s songwriting sensibilities would fit well with the Snicket books, and thus began the creative collaboration documented on this recording.