Phillis Wheatley

For other editions, see Author Catalog.

Poems and letters of the first significant black American writer who knew no English when she was brought from Africa to Boston as a child in the eighteenth century.

With Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), Phillis Wheatley (1753?-1784) became the first English-speaking person of African descent to publish a book and only the second woman -- of any race or background -- to do so in America. Written in Boston while she was just a teenager, and when she was still a slave, Wheatley's work was an international sensation. In Phillis Wheatley, Vincent Carretta offers the first full-length biography of a figure whose origins and later life have remained shadowy despite her iconic status. A scholar with extensive knowledge of transatlantic literature and history, Carretta uncovers new details about Wheatley's origins, her upbringing, and how she gained freedom. Carretta solves the mystery of John Peters, correcting the record of when he and Wheatley married and revealing what became of him after her death. Assessing Wheatley's entire body of work, Carretta discusses the likely role she played in the production, marketing, and distribution of her writing. Wheatley developed a remarkable transatlantic network that transcended racial, class, political, religious, and geographical boundaries. Carretta reconstructs that network and sheds new light on her religious and political identities. In the course of his research he discovered the earliest poem attributable to Wheatley and has included it and other unpublished poems in the biography. Carretta relocates Wheatley from the margins to the center of her eighteenth-century transatlantic world, revealing the fascinating life of a woman who rose from the indignity of enslavement to earn wide recognition, only to die in obscurity a few years later. - Publisher.

Selections include: ... - [Young Goodman Brown]( by Nathaniel Hawthorne ... - [An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge]( by Ambrose Bierce ... - [A Pair of Silk Stockings]( by Kate Chopin - [The Cask of Amontillado]( - [Fall of the House of Usher]( - [The Glass Menagerie]( by Tennesse Williams

Grade 11

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was the first book of poetry ever published by an African-American author. Phillis Wheatley’s deep familiarity with Latin literature and Christianity, combined with her African ancestry, provided her with a unique and inimitable view of poetry. She was kidnapped and brought over to America on a ship called The Phillis after which she was named. Her interest in poetry and literature was recognized by the Wheatley family who, though keeping her enslaved, provided her with classic works of literature by authors such as Virgil, Homer, Terence, and Pope, all of whom had a significant influence on her work. She received praise from many of her contemporaries including George Washington, John Hancock, and Voltaire. Shortly after publishing her collection of poetry she was emancipated by the Wheatley family. Even so, her life ended in poverty and obscurity. Though her influence on poetry and African-American literature is indisputable, more modern critics of her work point to the lack of censure of slavery and the absence of discussion about the lives of black people in the United States as an example of the Uncle Tom syndrome.