Ever wondered about the man, immortalized
in bronze, who you pass while on your way to the post office
in Downtown Brooklyn?
Well, Debby Applegate wrote the book on that towering figure
– "The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry
Ward Beecher" (Doubleday, $27.95) – and she’ll regale a
congregation of listeners with the discoveries she made after
seven years of research and writing at the Brooklyn Heights branch
of the Brooklyn Public Library on Tuesday.
In the 19th century, Beecher was a famous preacher in Brooklyn
Heights’s (still operational) Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims,
an abolitionist, a brother to author Harriet Beecher Stowe ("Uncle
Tom’s Cabin"), a newspaper columnist and novelist. He was
also accused of seducing his friend’s wife, and Applegate recounts
the scandal that birthed "more newspaper headlines than
the entire Civil War, and culminated in a six-month trial and
media circus."
Applegate will read from her book on July 18 at 6:30 pm at the
Brooklyn Heights Library [280 Cadman Plaza West at Tillary Street].
The event is free and open to the public. For more information,
call (718) 623-7100.
