Peck's Bad Boy

{{Short description|Fictional character}}

File:Peck's Bad Boy (1921) - Jackie Coogan.jpg as the Bad Boy in the 1921 film]]

File:Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, True Williams 129.jpg)]]

Henry "Hennery" Peck, popularly known as Peck's Bad Boy, is a fictional character created by George Wilbur Peck (1840–1916).{{cite book|first=James P.|last=Roberts|chapter=George Wilbur Peck|title=Famous Wisconsin Authors|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-kyFe9jwmEUC&pg=PA73|date=2002|publisher=Badger Books Inc.|isbn=978-1-878569-85-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/famouswisconsina0000robe/page/73 73–77]|url=https://archive.org/details/famouswisconsina0000robe/page/73}} 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.{{cite book|author1=Elizabeth Webber|author2=Mike Feinsilber|title=Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Allusions|url=https://archive.org/details/merriamwebstersd0000webb|url-access=registration|year=1999|publisher=Merriam-Webster|isbn=978-0-87779-628-2|pages=[https://archive.org/details/merriamwebstersd0000webb/page/410 410]}} Described as "a vicious little swaggerer" and "no more than a callous brute",{{cite journal|title=The "Bad Boy" in American Literature|first= Bert|last=Roller|journal=Peabody Journal of Education|volume=8|number=5|year=1931|pages=291–296|jstor=1488396|doi= 10.1080/01619563109535021}} Hennery's antics were more mean-spirited than those of earlier boyhood characters like Huckleberry Finn,{{cite book|first=Donald E.|last= Pease|title=Revisionary Interventions Into the Americanist Canon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_3moT56Cx0QC&pg=PA148|date= 1994|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=0-8223-1493-2|pages=148}} and modern criticism views the violence and racism in the original stories as objectionable or politically incorrect.{{cite book|first=Philip A.|last= Greasley|contribution=George (W)ilbur Peck|title=Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume 1: The Authors|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZnuYKJSoHCMC&pg=PA406|date=2001|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=0-253-10841-1|pages=406–407}}{{cite book|first=Daniel S.|last= Burt|title=The Chronology of American Literature: America's Literary Achievements from the Colonial Era to Modern Times|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VQ0fgo5v6e0C&pg=PA265|year=2004|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|isbn=0-618-16821-4|page=265}} 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".