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Henry "Hennery" Peck, popularly known as Peck's Bad Boy, is a fictional character created by George Wilbur Peck (1840–1916).[1] First appearing in the 1883 novel Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, the Bad Boy has appeared in numerous print, stage, and film adaptations. The character is portrayed as a mischievous prankster, and the phrase "Peck's bad boy" has entered the language to refer to anyone whose mischievous or bad behavior leads to annoyance or embarrassment.[2] Described as "a vicious little swaggerer" and "no more than a callous brute",[3] Hennery's antics were more mean-spirited than those of earlier boyhood characters like Huckleberry Finn,[4] and modern criticism views the violence and racism in the original stories as objectionable or politically incorrect.[5][6] The inspiration for Hennery—the Bad Boy—came from Edward James Watson, who was a telegraph messenger boy that Peck met in the early 1880s. Apparently Watson thought up many of the stories used by Peck. Mr Watson had in his possession a letter from Peck "To my friend E. J. Watson, who, as a boy, gave me the first idea that culminated in the Peck's Bad Boy Series".
Books
- Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa (1883)
- The Grocery Man and Peck's Bad Boy (1883)
- Peck's Bad Boy Abroad (1905)
- The Adventures of Peck's Bad Boy (1906)
- Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus (1906)
- Peck's Bad Boy with the Cowboys (1908)
Films
- The Bad Boy and the Groceryman (1905)
- Peck's Bad Boy (1908)[7]
- Peck's Bad Boy (1921)
- Peck's Bad Boy (1934)
- Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus (1938)
- A scene from the stage version of Peck's Bad Boy is featured in the 1942 film Yankee Doodle Dandy showing Douglas Croft as a teenage George M. Cohan in the title role.
Stage
- Peck's Bad Boy (1884) by Charles Felton Pidgin
References
- ^ Roberts, James P. (2002). "George Wilbur Peck". Famous Wisconsin Authors. Badger Books Inc. pp. 73–77. ISBN 978-1-878569-85-1.
- ^ Elizabeth Webber; Mike Feinsilber (1999). Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Allusions. Merriam-Webster. pp. 410. ISBN 978-0-87779-628-2.
- ^ Roller, Bert (1931). "The "Bad Boy" in American Literature". Peabody Journal of Education. 8 (5): 291–296. doi:10.1080/01619563109535021. JSTOR 1488396.
- ^ Pease, Donald E. (1994). Revisionary Interventions Into the Americanist Canon. Duke University Press. p. 148. ISBN 0-8223-1493-2.
- ^ Greasley, Philip A. (2001). "George (W)ilbur Peck". Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume 1: The Authors. Indiana University Press. pp. 406–407. ISBN 0-253-10841-1.
- ^ Burt, Daniel S. (2004). The Chronology of American Literature: America's Literary Achievements from the Colonial Era to Modern Times. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 265. ISBN 0-618-16821-4.
- ^ "Peck's Bad Boy movies- lesser known". georgewpeck.com. Retrieved 23 March 2018.