FIRST EDITION OF PHILLIS WHEATLEY'S "POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL
THE FIRST LITERARY WORK OF AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN
PHILLIS WHEATLEY (c. 1753-1784) Her book "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral", published by A. Bell, London, 1773. The excessively rare first edition, 124pp. 8vo., complete with the fine engraved portrait of the author seated at a table and contemplating the work before her. Rebound in full leather, contents very fine. In custom slipcase. Blockson No. 68. A landmark volume in African-American history, women's studies, and American poetry. The first book by an African-American, "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" was also the first volume by an American poet to have a frontispiece portrait, supposedly drawn by Scipio Moorhead, a Boston slave, artist, and fellow poet. The book was so controversial, it required an appended affidavit from eighteen of Boston's most esteemed white men including such notables as Governor Thomas Hutchinson, James Bowdoin, and John Hancock, to assure the public that "...the young Negro Girl, who was but a few years since, brought an uncultivated Barbarian, from Africa...has been examined by some of the best Judges, and is thought qualified to write them [the poems]." Phillis Wheatley probably hailed from the Senegambian coast, was kidnapped by slave traders at the age of six or seven, and brought to Boston on the Phillis, a slave schooner, on July 11, 1761. Found naked and shivering on the dock, she was purchased as a house servant by John and Susanna Wheatley, and taken into their home on King Street in Boston where she became the favorite of Mrs. Wheatley. In but sixteen months, Phillis mastered the English language and began to write poetry, even reciting her intricate verses for the white New England elite--in homes where blacks were not generally invited to visit. On May 8, 1773, her mistress sent the young poet to England where her poetry had already been introduced to the Countess of Huntingdon to whom one of her first poems was addressed. Before Phillis returned to America, arrangements had been made to have this volume, her first (and only) book published. Sailing back from England early, owing to the ill health of Susanna, Phillis was manumitted sometime between September 13 and October 18, 1773, according to one of her letters. After her mistress died, Phillis, with the help of the remaining slaves, managed the house for her former master, John Wheatley. In 1775, Phillis Wheatley wrote a letter and poem to General George Washington who was so moved that he invited her to visit his camp at Cambridge, and it is thought by many that such a meeting did occur. In 1778, John Wheatley died, and Phillis finally left the house for smaller quarters. She married John Peters, a rather good-for-nothing sort, whose various schemes left the couple with very little on which to survive. Phillis wrote but several new poems as Phillis Peters, and spent the remainder of her life struggling in an indifferent world. She had three children, two of whom died in infancy; the third died within hours of her mother's death on December 5, 1784. Curiously, the announcement of her death was published in many New England newspapers. Many of her poems were published in both American and British newspapers and magazines, making her an international celebrity. Phillis was also a fervent Christian whose poems and letters reflected her core beliefs and strong moral values. She soon became a member of the Old South Meeting House in Boston which remains today the only intact building where Phillis once set foot. An historic volume!