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John Ferling, a noted historian and author of several acclaimed books on the Revolutionary War period, will speak on John Adams and the Agony of War at 6 p.m. on Thursday, October 28, in the Boston Public Library’s newly restored Abbey Room in the historic McKim Building in Copley Square.

John Adams was a man of peace whose public life was consumed by issues of war: the War of Independence while he served in the Continental Congress and the Quasi War with France during his presidency. John Ferling addresses how Adams coped with the stresses raised by sending men to war and the need to secure and preserve the new American nation in the face of a great war crisis.

This program inaugurates Never Without A Book: John Adams, A President and his Library, a series of lectures highlighting the personal library of John Adams, which was deposited at the Boston Public Library in 1894. Among the most important private collections of its time, the John Adams Library represents the intellectual and literary tastes of an American revolutionary and Founding Father. It also preserves Adams’ first-hand encounters with books and learning, in thousands of his handwritten marginal notes. The series is generously sponsored by the Lowell Institute.

John Ferling, professor of history at the University of West Georgia, is the author of several books including John Adams: A Life and Adams v Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800.

For more than 150 years, the Boston Public Library has pioneered public library service in America with revolutionary ideas and famous firsts. Established in 1848, the BPL was the first publicly supported municipal library in America , the first public library to lend books, the first to have a branch library and the first to have a children’s room. Today, the BPL boasts 27 neighborhood branches, free Internet access, two unique restaurants, an award-winning website www.bpl.org and an on-line store featuring reproductions of the BPL’s priceless photographs and artwork. Each year, the BPL hosts nearly 5000 programs, answers more than one million reference questions and serves millions of people in its National Historic Landmark McKim Building in Copley Square . All of its programs and exhibits are free and open to the public. At the Boston Public Library, books are just the beginning!

Prepared by the Boston Public Library's Communications Office. For more information about news, programs and events at the BPL, call 617-859-2212 or send a message to the Communications Office.