Story of a bad boy, the

"Tom Bailey" in Story of a Bad Boy is based on Aldrich's own life when after living in New Orleans for a period of time he was sent back to his hometown of Portsmouth to enter college. He wrote it during a summer holiday in Portsmouth, fresh from a stint as Civil War correspondent, and reflecting on his late father's life and his own upcoming fatherhood. Straying from the popular moral tone many works of the day conveyed, it is a semi-autobiographical memoir and realistic portrayal of an all-American boyhood. Mark Twain is said to have been inspired by it to write Tom Sawyer.