Mark Twain: A Literary Life

Emerson links Aldrich and Twain together through their two bad boy characters. According to Emerson, Twain was consciously drawing on the themes already being developed by Aldrich and other literary contemporaries; "like Aldrich's boy, Tom Bailey, Tom Sawyer is a bookish boy, and the book as a whole has a bookish, 'Eastern' quality" (92). This similar literary fascination could link the two writers and highlight their friendship.