Judging from “The Story of a Bad Boy,” which is partly
autobiographical, Thomas Bailey Aldrich spent his boyhood just as all
wholesome-minded, healthy boys do, in having a good time. He was born
in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, November 11, 1836. While he was still
a baby, his family went to New Orleans, but he was sent back to his
native town to be educated. After a common school course, he prepared
to enter Harvard, but his father failed in business and soon afterward
died. Although young Aldrich’s relatives were prepared to pay the
expenses of his college course, he preferred to be independent and
decided to begin a business career. So it came about that he entered
the offices of his uncle in New York city at the age of sixteen.
About this time he began to contribute articles in prose and verse to
Putnam’s Magazine, The Knickerbocker Magazine and other periodicals.
His literary ability finally got him a place in a publishing house as
reader of manuscripts and of proof. His first book, The Bells, did
not attract much attention, but in 1856 he published The Ballad of
Baby Bell and Other Poems, which struck the popular fancy. About the
year 1860 he became an independent writer, contributing to various
publications, but chiefly to the Atlantic Monthly. In 1870 he became
editor of Every Saturday, a high-class literary weekly, which was
founded in Boston and effectively edited, yet only lived four years.
In 1881 he succeeded Mr. Howells in the editorial chair of the Atlantic
Monthly. In this same year both Mr. Howells and Mr. Aldrich received
from Yale university the degree of LL.D. Mr. Aldrich retired from
the Atlantic Monthly in 1890. In 1865 he was married to Miss Lillian
Woodman, of New York city. Several children were born to him.