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Thomas Bailey Aldrich was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on November 11, 1836. He was the son of Elias Taft, a merchant, and Sara Abba (Bailey) Aldrich.
Shortly after his birth, the family moved from New Hampshire to New York for four years, then to New Orleans for about three years.
In 1849, Aldrich returned from New Orleans to New Hampshire from where he studied at Samuel De Merritt’s Academy. His father's death later that year, however, inspired him to give up school and move to New York with his mother.
Aldrich began writing as a poet, publishing his first youthful efforts in the Portsmouth Journal by the age of sixteen. Though he had prepared to attend Harvard, family finances made that impossible, so Aldrich moved to New York to take a job clerking for his uncle, and wrote poetry in his spare time.
In 1855, at the age of nineteen, he published his first collection of poetry. The Bells: A Collection of Chimes, and soon after devoted himself to a purely literary career. He went first to the Evening Mirror, serving as a junior literary critic, but soon moved on to the Home Journal, taking on the position of a subeditor. There he learned the ins and outs of publishing and wrote articles about New York society; but more importantly, he made the acquaintance of many of the leading writerфs of the day.
One of those writers, Henry Clapp, founded the Saturday Press in 1858 and invited Aldrich to join the masthead as assistant editor, with the further assignment to write satirical articles poking fun at the American ideal of respectability.
For a time, his editorial and authorial duties diverted his energies from poetry, but when the Press folded in 1860, he returned to his first literary love with vigor.
Aldrich achieved great success in that same year when he sold his first poetry to the Atlantic Monthly, then America’s pre-eminent literary publication, which boasted such venerable contributors as Longfellow, Emerson, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
His career was interrupted by the outbreak of the Civil War, during which he served as a war correspondent, for the New York Tribune, but returned to his hometown of Portsmouth in 1862. His return to the literary life meant both a return to writing, poetry and short stories, and to publishing: he took the post of managing editor of the Illustrated News. There followed a series of further editorial postings, during which time he continued to write.
After his marriage, Aldrich moved to Boston, but he never severed his ties to Portsmouth, the city of his birth and in which many of his stories are set. In 1868, just before the birth of his twin sons, Aldrich published the work for which he remains best known, a serialized tale called “The Story of a Bad Boy” that was published by the children’s magazine Our Young Folks.
Aldrich continued to publish poetry, novels, and other prose pieces, but when, in 1891, he took on the position of editor of the Atlantic Monthly his duties left him precious little time for creative work. In his new position, he published the work of many of the finest writers of the day, from Longfellow to Thomas Hardy and Oliver Wendell Holmes to Henry James.
In 1890, he was pleased to step down from his role as editor, devoting his time fully to travel and writing. In 1901 his beloved son Charles, then age thirty-three was diagnosed with tuberculosis, from which he died three years later. Aldrich was stricken terribly by this loss, writing no new works until his death in 1907.
An astonishingly prolific writing career - primarily in poetry and adolescent prose - is only part of the literary legacy of Thomas Aldrich. His editorial career in the literary publications of his day, particularly his influential editorship of the Atlantic Monthly, placed him in the heart of the Eastern (particularly Bostonian) literary establishment of the late nineteenth century.
He is best known for his serialized tale called “The Story of a Bad Boy”. With this tale, later published as a book, he helped to change the face of the genre of adolescent fiction.
He brought the already well-respected periodical to an unprecedented level of international renown. Aldrich’s name may not roll off people’s tongues as easily as that of Mark Twain’s, but he certainly paved the way for other authors to follow. His role was pivotal in the development of the genre of realism.
In religion Aldrich was a Protestant.
Aldrich was not interested in politics.
Like his friend and contemporary Mark Twain, Aldrich adopted a style of writing that had little in common with the moralizing stories of the time but focused instead on realism in depicting the exploits of an adventurous boyhood. Described by critics as the first work in which an American boy is treated realistically, it remains of all his writings his greatest contribution to American letters.
Quotes from others about the person
“Under Aldrich’s conduct the Atlantic attained a notable unity of tone and distinction of style.’’ - Ferris Greenslet
“Aldrich, perhaps more than any other writer, represented for the Gilded Age all that was delightful, polished, cultured, and accomplished.” - Kenneth M. Price
Aldrich was married to Lilian Woodman in 1865. They had twin boys five years later and a third son was born shortly after.
