Historian Ellis on Portsmouth Stage

Writers on a New England Stage, the celebrated author series presented at The Music Hall welcomes the renowned historian Joseph J. Ellis on Tuesday, November 30, at 7:30pm.  The Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author will take the stage to discuss his latest work of nonfiction, FIRST FAMILY: Abigail and John Adams. Tickets to the evening event are currently on sale as are vouchers for books signed by the author. (Continued below)

 

 

Writers on a New England Stage is a signature series of unique literary evenings in a rollicking radio show format. Following Ellis’ presentation of his new work, he will be interviewed on stage by Virginia Prescott, host of New Hampshire Public Radio’s “Word of Mouth.”  Live music will be performed throughout the hour-long event by the award-winning house band Dreadnaught.  The live show will be rebroadcast on New Hampshire Public Radio.  

“We’ve welcomed several giants of the literary world to the series in this past year, but not since Doris Kearns Goodwin have we had on our stage such a master of history,” says Patricia Lynch, Executive Producer. “Joe Ellis is just that, a master, in a class of his own when it comes to this country’s great history, its men and women.” 

About The Book 

In FIRST FAMILY Joseph J. Ellis brings to life America’s preeminent first couple to life in a moving and illuminating narrative that sweeps through the American Revolution and the Republic’s tenuous early years. As in his previous bestselling works Founding Brothers and His Excellency Joseph J. Ellis gives us a story both intimate and panoramic: equal parts biography, political history, and love story. 

John and Abigail Adams left an indelible and remarkably preserved portrait of their lives together in their personal correspondence: both Adamses were prolific letter writers (although John conceded that Abigail was clearly the more gifted of the two), and over the years they exchanged more than twelve hundred letters. Joseph J. Ellis distills this unprecedented and unsurpassed record to give us an account both intimate and panoramic; part biography, part political history, and part love story. 

Ellis describes the first meeting between the two as inauspicious—John was twenty-four, Abigail just fifteen, and each was entirely unimpressed with the other. But they soon began a passionate correspondence that resulted in their marriage five years later. 

Over the next decades, the couple was separated nearly as much as they were together. John’s political career took him first to Philadelphia, where he became the boldest advocate for the measures that would lead to the Declaration of Independence. Yet in order to attend the Second Continental Congress, he left his wife and children in the middle of the war zone that had by then engulfed Massachusetts. Later he was sent to Paris, where he served as a minister to the court of France alongside Benjamin Franklin. These years apart stressed the Adamses’ union almost beyond what it could bear: Abigail grew lonely, while the Adams children suffered from their father’s absence. 

John was elected the nation’s first vice president, but by the time of his reelection, Abigail’s health prevented her from joining him in Philadelphia, the interim capital. She no doubt had further reservations about moving to the swamp on the Potomac when John became president, although this time he persuaded her. President Adams inherited a weak and bitterly divided country from George Washington. The political situation was perilous at best, and he needed his closest advisor by his side: “I can do nothing,” John told Abigail after his election, “without you.” 

In Ellis’s rich and striking new history, John and Abigail’s relationship unfolds in the context of America’s birth as a nation. 

About the author 

Joseph J. Ellis won the Pulitzer Prize for Founding Brothers. His portrait of Thomas Jefferson, American Sphinx, won the National Book Award. He is the Ford Foundation Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife and their youngest son. 

Ticket and book purchases
High School and Book Club guests 

Tickets for Writers on a New England Stage:  Joseph J. Ellis ($13, $11 for members of The Music Hall) are available through The Music Hall Box Office, located at 28 Chestnut Street, Portsmouth, over the phone at 603-436-2400 or online.  Autographed copies of Ellis’ new book FIRST FAMILY are available on the evening at The Music Hall or in the days following at RiverRun Bookstore.  The book is $25.15 when reserved in advance through the purchase of a voucher through The Music Hall box office and at RiverRun Bookstore at 20 Congress Street in downtown Portsmouth.  Autographed books, as available, can be purchased on the evening for the full retail price of $27.95. 

Patrons who want to read the book before the writer’s event can buy an unsigned copy as soon as RiverRun Bookstore has them available.  The 10% discount price will be in effect when they show their ticket to the author’sWriters on a New England Stage evening.  The producers ask for patrons’ support of this vibrant series through the purchase of books through The Music Hall and/or River Run Bookstore. 

At each Writers event, The Music Hall hosts local high school students selected by their teachers, who come free of charge to the event and get an opportunity to meet the author.  The Music Hall welcomes local book clubs attending on the night to take part in a drawing to be guests at a private backstage book signing/reception with the featured writer.  For more information on how to join the Writers on a New England Stage book club list and drawing, email Associate Producer Margaret Talcott. Interested high school and middle school teachers should contact Outreach Coordinator Chris Curtis.