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Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley. ...
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Description
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley. London: Printed for A. Bell, 1773. First edition. 12mo in fours. (4.5" x 6.75"). 124, [3, Contents], [1, Publisher's Advertisement] pages. Frontispiece portrait attributed to Scipio Moorhead. Contemporary sheep skin boards. Faux maroon morocco slipcase stamped in gilt with brown cloth chemise and pull ribbon measuring 5.25" x 7.25" overall. This volume includes a dedication to the Countess of Huntingdon who helped secure publication.Phillis Wheatley (circa 1753-1784) was believed to have been born in Senegal, West Africa. When she was around eight years old, she was kidnapped and brought as an enslaved child to Boston, where she was purchased by John Wheatley, a prosperous tailor, to be the personal servant of his wife, Susanna. The couple taught her to read and write and encouraged her interest in books. She wrote her first poem around the age of fourteen. John Wheatley writes, "Without any assistance from School Education ... she in sixteen Months Time from her arrival, attained the English Language ... to such a Degree, as to read any, the most difficult Parts of the Sacred Writings ..." (from the letter of Wheatley to the publisher, printed here as introductory material). She also read extensively in Greek and Roman history, Greek mythology, and contemporary English poets, and her work strongly reveals the influence of Gray and Pope. Because her health was failing, her master's son took her to England in 1773, where her popularity was immediate and tremendous. Among her devotees was Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, who subsidized the printing of this book, her first bound volume of poetry, which was published while she was abroad, and to whom Wheatley dedicated the book. "Wheatley wrote at a time when women suffered great discouragement for expressing political and literary thoughts... The first edition of Wheatley's Poems... are considered one of the most important books relating to African-American literature and one of the most celebrated relating to a black author." (Charles L. Blockson, A Commented Bibliography of One Hundred and One Influential Books By and About People of African Descent (1556-1982). A Collector's Choice). Most of her poems are elegies, and most reveal her intense religious faith. Although little is written about herself or her circumstances in America, her poems are polished, sophisticated, and similar in style to many turned out in both England and America at the time. She was emancipated in 1773, shortly after the publication of her first book. By 1779 both Susanna and John had died, leaving Phillis in near poverty. Around this time, she married a free black grocer named John Peters, but misfortune continued to plague the family. She gave birth to three children who tragically died young, and Peters was imprisoned for debt in 1784. Phillis, whose own health was always frail, died in December of that year at the age of just thirty-one.
Reference: Sabin 103136. Church 1101. Afro-Americana 11111. Blockson 68. ESTC T153734.
Condition: Rebacked and corners refreshed in brown calf; corners bumped and rubbed with boards showing through; moderate edgewear with boards showing, rubbed and worn with some losses to board. Hinges repaired, but cracked. Edges sprinkled red, but faded. Edges trimmed, but not affecting text. Some offsetting and soiling to margins of endpapers. Early ink ownership to front free endpaper recto; small pencil bookseller notations to front pastedown and rear free endpaper verso; twentieth-century ownership in blue ink to front blank recto. Internally generally clean, somewhat foxed and toned.
Auction Info
2022 October 19 Historic African Americana Signature® Auction #6248 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
October, 2022
19th
Wednesday
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