ALDRICH, THOMAS BAI LEY (1836—). An American mad, novelist, traveler, and editor. Ile was born at Portsmouth. N. IL. November 11, 1836. After a boyhood spent in New Eng land and Louisiana. he entered a counting-house in New York in IS5-1. Ire was employed as "reader" in a publishing house in 1857. and lie served successively on the staffs of th- New York Evening Mirror, the Home Journal, and the Saturday Press. In 1866 he removed to-Boston, where he was editor of _Every Saturday until 1874. He then became a regular staff contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, and on the retirement of \V. D. Howells, in 1881, succeeded to the editorship, which he held until 1890. Afterward, he de voted himself to literary work and travel. Aldrich is best known as a poet. He has, not very aptly, been called "the American Herrick," owing to the fact that his verse is graceful, light, and melodious, carefully wrought, restrained, and reminiscent of places that he has visited. His chief publications of verse, besides the collective editions, are: The Bells (1855), The Ballad of Rabic Bell (1856), Pampinea, and Other Poems (1861), Cloth of Gold, and Other Poems (1874), Hower and Thorn ( 1S76), Pricer Jerome's Beauti ful Book ( 188 , Mercedes, and Later Lyric's (1883), Wyndham Towers (1889), Unguarded Gates, and Other Poems (1895). The prose of
Aldrich consists of novels, short stories, and books of travel. Like the poetry, it is delicate and finished in style, but seems to lack the greater constructive values. His best-known piece of fiction is probably Marjorie Daw (1873) ; and leis Story of a Bad Boy (1870) is also very popu lar. Other novels are Out of Ms Head, a Romance (1862), Prudence Palfrey (1874). The Queen of Sheba (1877), The Stillwater Tragedy (1880), and Two Bites ut a Cherry (1893), a volume of short stories. His volumes of travel and reminiscence are: From Ponkapog to l'esth (1883) and An. Old Town by the yea (1893).