Aldrich travelled with his father for much of his early years. He returned to Portsmouth to study for college, but his father's death in 1852 required that he earn a living; first in a business office in New York and subsequently as a journalist. He contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers and in 1856 joined the staff of Home Journal magazine. When the Civil War broke out, he edited the New York Illustrated News. In 1865, he moved to Boston where he was editor of Ticknor & Fields' Every Saturday magazine. When W.D. Howells stepped down from the Atlantic Monthly in 1881, Aldrich was brought in as editor, a position he held until 1890. A talented poet, Aldrich published many volumes of verse including The Ballad of Babie Bell (1856), Pampinea & Other Poems (1861), Cloth of Gold (1874), Flower and Thorn (1876), Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book (1881), Mercedes and Later Lyrics (1883) and Wyndham Towers (1889). In 1873, he published Marjorie Daw and Other People, a collection of short stories which was immensely popular. Mark Twain is said to have been inspired to write Tom Sawyer by Aldrich's Story of a Bad Boy (1869). Aldrich's other works include Prudence Palfrey (1874), The Queen of Sheba (1877), A Rivermouth Romance (1877), The Stillwater Tragedy (1880), From Ponkapog to Pesth (1883) and An Old Town By the Sea (1883). |
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