Joan Aiken was a pioneer in the adults-being-over-the-top-cruel literary genre. The Lemony Snicket books are like an updated version of the Wolves Chronicles. It shouldn't be enjoyable to read, but there's something satisfying about these stories where kids go through so much ill treatment and then win in the end. These kids start off at the top of the world, then are slowly broken down piece by piece until they're wearing a sack for clothing, with a number for a name, with nothing to eat but bread crusts and gruel. There's a happy ending to it all, though.

This also seems like it may have been the inspiration behind the "Nathaniel and Isabel" story from Six Feet Under.