American poet
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Born
| (
1836-11-11
)
November 11, 1836
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
, United States
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Died
| March 19, 1907
(1907-03-19)
(aged 70)
Boston
, Massachusetts, United States
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Occupation
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Thomas Bailey Aldrich
(
; November 11, 1836 ? March 19, 1907) was an American writer, poet, critic, and editor. He is notable for his long editorship of
The Atlantic Monthly
, during which he published writers including
Charles W. Chesnutt
.
[1]
He was also known for his semi-autobiographical book
The Story of a Bad Boy
, which established the "bad boy's book" subgenre in nineteenth-century American literature,
[2]
and for his poetry.
Biography
[
edit
]
Early life and education
[
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]
Thomas Bailey Aldrich was born in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
, on November 11, 1836,
[3]
to Elias T. Aldrich and Sara Aldrich, nee Bailey.
[4]
When Aldrich was a child, his father moved to
New Orleans
, but after 10 years, Aldrich was sent back to Portsmouth to prepare for college.
[5]
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.
Early career
[
edit
]
Aldrich abandoned college preparations after his father's death in 1849. At age 16 in 1852, he entered his uncle's New York business office and became a constant contributor to the newspapers and magazines. Aldrich befriended other young poets, artists and wits of the metropolitan
bohemia
of the early 1860s, including
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
Nathaniel Parker Willis
. During the
Civil War
he was the editor of the
New York Illustrated News
.
In 1865, Aldrich returned to
New England
, and in Boston he edited the eclectic weekly literary magazine
Every Saturday
,
[6]
published by
Ticknor and Fields
and successors (Field, Osgood;
James R. Osgood
& Co.; H. O. Houghton & Co.), throughout its run from 1866 to 1874. From 1881 to 1890, he edited
The Atlantic Monthly
, Boston's most important magazine. As editor of
The Atlantic
he created tension with his publisher
Henry Oscar Houghton
by refusing to publish articles that Houghton commissioned from friends including
Woodrow Wilson
and
Francis Marion Crawford
. When Houghton chastised Aldrich for turning down submissions from his friend
Daniel Coit Gilman
, Aldrich threatened to resign and finally did so in June 1890.
[7]
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 later life
[
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]
Aldrich was married in 1865 to Lilian Woodman of New York,
[6]
and had two sons.
[8]
Mark Twain
apparently detested Aldrich's wife, writing in 1893: "Lord, I loathe that woman so! She is an idiot?an absolute idiot?and does not know it ... and her husband, the sincerest man that walks ... tied for life to this vacant hellion, this clothes-rack, this twaddling, blethering, driveling blatherskite!"
[9]
For her own part, Lilian Aldrich wrote affectionately of Mark Twain in her memoir
Crowding Memories
(1920). In Chapter 12, however, she does write apologetically about their first encounter, when she treated him coldly, not being informed of his identity and mistakenly believing him to be inebriated.
[10]
The Aldriches were close friends of
Henry L. Pierce
, former mayor of Boston and chocolate magnate. At his death in 1896, he willed them his estate at
Canton, Massachusetts
.
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.
[11]
Aldrich died in Boston on March 19, 1907.
[12]
His last words were recorded as, "In spite of it all, I am going to sleep; put out the lights."
[13]
His
Life
was written by
Ferris Greenslet
(1908).
[12]
He is buried on Grapevine Path lot 6109 of
Mount Auburn Cemetery
in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
.
[14]
In 1920, Aldrich's widow published her memoirs,
Crowding Memories
, which includes accounts of her husband's friendships with Mark Twain,
William Dean Howells
,
Bret Harte
,
Henry James
,
James Russell Lowell
,
Harriet Beecher Stowe
,
Edwin Booth
, and other cultural luminaries.
Literary style and criticism
[
edit
]
Aldrich wrote both in prose and verse. 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
(1883),
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.
[
citation needed
]
Critics believed him to show the influence of
Robert Herrick
.
[
citation needed
]
He was a critic of the dialect verse that was popular at the time. In a 1900 letter referencing contemporary poet
James Whitcomb Riley
, he wrote, "The English language is too sacred a thing to be mutilated and vulgarized".
[15]
Aldrich's longer narrative or dramatic poems were not as successful.
[
citation needed
]
Notable work includes 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 Carinosas", "Destiny", and the eight-line poem "Identity".
[
citation needed
]
Published works
[
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]
- Daisy's Necklace: and What Came of It
(1857)
- The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth
(1858)
- Out of His Head
(1862)
- Pere Antoine's Date Palm
(1866)
- Pansie's Wish: A Christmas Fantasy, with a Moral
(1870)
- The Story of a Bad Boy
(1870)
- Marjorie Daw and Other People
(1873)
- Prudence Palfrey
(1874)
- The Queen of Sheba
(1877)
- A Rivermouth Romance
(1877)
- The Story of a Cat
(1879)
- The Stillwater Tragedy
(1880)
- From Ponkapog to Pesth
(1883)
- The Second Son
(1888)
- Wyndham Towers
(1889)
- Aldrich, Thomas Bailey (1893) [1883].
An Old Town by the Sea
(2nd ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Riverside Press, H.O. Houghton & Co.
- Two Bites at a Cherry, with Other Tales
(1894)
- Judith and Holofernes: A Poem
(1896)
- A Sea Turn and Other Matters
(1902)
- Ponkapog Papers
(1903)
References
[
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]
Citations
[
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]
- ^
Knapp, 1898?1900
- ^
Hinz 1952
, pp. 120?129
- ^
Samuels 1966
, p. 20
- ^
Rand, John Clark (1890).
One of a Thousand: A Series of Biographical Sketches of One Thousand Representative Men Resident in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, A.D. 1888-'89
. First National Publishing Company. p. 10.
- ^
Chisholm 1911
, p. 536
- ^
a
b
Johnson 1906
, p. 73
- ^
Goodman 2011
, p. 149
- ^
Moore 2008
- ^
Skandera-Trombley 1997
, p. 163
- ^
Aldrich, Mrs. Thomas Bailey (Lilian) (1920).
Crowding Memories
. Houghton Mifflin Company.
- ^
Gallos 1985
, pp. 148?149
- ^
a
b
Chisholm 1911
, p. 537
- ^
Samuels 1966
, p. 40
- ^
Wilson, Scott.
Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14000 Famous Persons
- ^
Renker, Elizabeth.
Realist Poets in American Culture, 1866-1900
. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2018: 23.
ISBN
978-0-19-880878-7
Sources
[
edit
]
-
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Chisholm, Hugh
, ed. (1911). "
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey
".
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 536?537.
- Gallos, Philip (1985).
Cure Cottages of Saranac Lake
. Historic Saranac Lake. pp. 148?149.
ISBN
0-9615159-0-2
.
- Goodman, Susan (2011).
Republic of Words: The Atlantic Monthly and Its Writers, 1857?1925
. University Press of New England. p. 149.
ISBN
978-161168196-3
.
- Hinz, Joseph (January 1952). "Huck and Pluck: 'Bad' Boys in American Fiction".
The South Atlantic Quarterly
. pp. 120?129.
- Johnson, Rossiter
, ed. (1906).
"Aldrich, Thomas Bailey"
.
The Biographical Dictionary of America
. Vol. 1. Boston, Mass.: American Biographical Society. p. 73
. Retrieved
November 13,
2020
– via en.wikisource.org.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the
public domain
.
- Knapp, Seaman A.
Journal of Travels: 1898?1900
. McNeese State University.
- Moore, Lucy (January 2008),
"Crossing the Color Line"
,
The Atlantic
- Samuels, Charles E. (1966).
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
. New York: Twayne Publishers. p. 40.
- Skandera-Trombley, Laura E. (1997).
Mark Twain in the Company of Women
. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 163.
ISBN
0-8122-1619-9
.
- "Unguarded Gates"
.
virginia.edu
.
External links
[
edit
]
Wikisource
has original text related to this article:
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