Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Born	November 11, 1836(1836-11-11) Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States
Died	March 19, 1907 (aged 70) Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Occupation	Poet, novelist and editor
Notable work(s)	The Story of a Bad Boy An Old Town by the Sea

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (November 11, 1836 – March 19, 1907) was an American poet, novelist, traveler and editor, born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Biography

Early life and education

When Aldrich was a child, his father moved to New Orleans. After 10 years, Aldrich was sent back to Portsmouth to prepare for college. This period of his life is partly described in his semi-autobiographical novel The Story of a Bad Boy (1870), in which "Tom Bailey" is the juvenile hero. Critics have said that this novel contains the first realistic depiction of childhood in American fiction and prepared the ground for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Career

His father's death in 1849 compelled Aldrich to abandon the idea of college. At age 16, he entered his uncle's business office in New York in 1852. Here he soon became a constant contributor to the newspapers and magazines. Aldrich quickly befriended other young poets, artists and wits of the metropolitan bohemia of the early 1860s. Among them were Edmund Clarence Stedman, Richard Henry Stoddard, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Bayard Taylor and Walt Whitman. From 1856 to 1859, Aldrich was on the staff of the Home Journal, then edited by N P Willis. During the Civil War, he was the editor of the New York Illustrated News.

In 1865 Aldrich returned to New England, where he was editor in Boston for ten years for Ticknor and Fields—then at the height of their prestige—of the eclectic weekly Every Saturday. It was discontinued in 1875. From 1881 to 1890, Aldrich was editor of the important Atlantic Monthly.

Meanwhile Aldrich continued his private writing, both in prose and verse. His talent was many-sided. He was well-known for his form in poetry. His successive volumes of verse, chiefly The Ballad of Babie Bell (1856), Pampinea, and Other Poems (1861), Cloth of Gold (1874), Flower and Thorn (1876), Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book (1881), Mercedes and Later Lyrics (18S}), Wyndham Towers (1889), and the collected editions of 1865, 1882, 1897 and 1900, showed him to be a poet of lyrical skill and light touch. Critics believed him to show the influence of Robert Herrick.

Aldrich's longer narrative or dramatic poems were not as successful. No American poet of the time showed more skill in describing some single picture, mood, conceit or episode. His best work was such lyrics as "Hesperides," "When the Sultan goes to Ispahan," "Before the Rain," "Nameless Pain," "The Tragedy," "Seadrift," "Tiger Lilies," "The One White Rose," "Palabras Cariñosas," "Destiny," or the eight-line poem "Identity". This added more to Aldrich's reputation than any of his writing after Babie Bell.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich House, part of Strawbery Banke Museum, Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Beginning with the collection of stories entitled Marjorie Daw and Other People (1873), Aldrich wrote works of realism and quiet humor. His novels Prudence Palfrey (1874), The Queen of Sheba (1877), and The Stillwater Tragedy (1880) had more dramatic action. The first portrayed Portsmouth with the affectionate touch shown in the shorter humorous tale, A Rivermouth Romance (1877). In An Old Town by the Sea (1893), Aldrich commemorated his birthplace again. Travel and description are the theme of From Ponkapog to Pesth (1883).

Marriage and family

Aldrich married and had children.

In 1901, Aldrich's son Charles, married the year before, was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Aldrich built two houses, one for his son and one for him and his family, in Saranac Lake, New York, then the leading treatment center for the disease. On March 6, 1904, Charles Aldrich died of tuberculosis, age thirty-four. The family left Saranac Lake and never returned.^[1]

Aldrich died at Boston on March 19, 1907. His last words were "In spite of it all, I'm going to sleep." His Life was written by Ferris Greenslet (1908).

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Thomas Bailey Aldrich

• 1918 Biographical Sketch
• Works by or about Thomas Bailey Aldrich at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions color illustrated)
• Works by Thomas Bailey Aldrich at Project Gutenberg