In a time when children's books were populated with well-behaved little gentlemen, Thomas Bailey Aldrich dared to present an alternative point of view - childhood as he remembered it. Tom Bailey is no angel. At times a bully, a vandal, and a troublemaker, he has a healthy zest for life and a perhaps over-developed love of mischief. The book follows Tom as he engages in a series of adventures which take him from his New Hampshire hometown to New Orleans and beyond. A fictionalized account of the author's own childhood, The Story of a Bad Boy was controversial when it first appeared in 1869, but is now hailed as the precursor to other 'bad boy' stories such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. It stands in its own right as a hugely enjoyable tale.