Peck's Bad Boy

Jackie Coogan as the Bad Boy in the 1921 film

Hennery gets kicked out of a drug store (art by True Williams)

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 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]

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

• Peck's Bad Boy (1921)
• Peck's Bad Boy (1934)
• Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus (1938)

Stage

• Peck's Bad Boy (1884) by Charles Felton Pidgin

References

1. Roberts, James P. (2002). "George Wilbur Peck". Famous Wisconsin Authors. Badger Books Inc. pp. 73–77. ISBN 978-1-878569-85-1.
2. Elizabeth Webber; Mike Feinsilber (1999). Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Allusions. Merriam-Webster. p. 410. ISBN 978-0-87779-628-2.
3. Roller, Bert (1931). "The "Bad Boy" in American Literature". Peabody Journal of Education 8 (5): 291–296.
4. Pease, Donald E. (1994). Revisionary Interventions Into the Americanist Canon. Duke University Press. p. 148. ISBN 0-8223-1493-2.
5. 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.
6. 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.