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Lot Essay
A rare signed copy of the first published book of poetry by an African American, with contemporary female ownership.
In the words of her later editor and champion Gloster Herbert Renfro, "One century ago American literature, then in its infancy, received no small degree of enrichment from the poetic genius of an African slave." Born in West Africa, Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped and enslaved as a young child and sold in 1761 to John and Susanna Wheatley in Boston. They chose the name "Phillis" after the ship on which the girl had endured the Middle Passage. The Wheatley family quickly recognized her intellectual prowess and encouraged her studies in the classics. From a young age, she corresponded with intellectuals like the Mohegan preacher Samuel Occum, and was close with the Mather family. Inspired to write poetry after reading John Addison's experimental drama Rosamond, her verses engage with the tradition of Milton, Pope, and Dryden—as well as ancient writers like Horace, Ovid, and Terence, the latter of whom she specifically calls out in her work as a fellow African. The frontispiece, a portrait of her at her desk writing, is often attributed to the enslaved artist Scipio Moorhead, to whom one of her poems is addressed. This portrait is the first known to depict an American woman writer.
Wheatley’s verse eulogy of English evangelist George Whitefield was published in 1770, gaining the attention of Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon (to whom Whitefield had been the personal chaplain). After a failure to get a book of her poems published in Boston, she turned to the Countess, who became her patron. To convince the printers to undertake the project, she had to submit an attestation that the poetry was truly her work, signed by prominent Boston men who examined her in court; this document is reprinted in the present volume. She traveled to London in 1773 and was greeted as a literary celebrity—Ignatius Sancho dubbed her "Genius in Bondage." But before she was able to meet King George, or even her own patron, she had to return to Boston to attend the ailing Susanna.
Reviews of the book in London were positive, but many drew attention to the hypocrisy of Americans who were lauding Phillis's genius while doing nothing to help her escape enslavement. This negative attention perhaps played a role in the Wheatleys granting Phillis her freedom in November 1773. In 1778 she married John Peters, a free person of color, and endeavored to publish a second volume of poetry. However, due to the economic collapse following the Revolutionary War and American publishers' continued resistance to her work, this effort proved unrealized before her untimely death in 1784.
Roger Stoddard notes that Wheatley "authenticated some copies with her signature on the verso of the title-leaf," as it is here. In her 18 October 1773 letter to David Wooster regarding copies of her book coming from London and the possibility of piracy, she states in no uncertain terms, "If any should be so ungenerous as to reprint them the Genuine Copy may be known, for it is sign'd in my own handwriting." In his biography, Vincent Carretta comments on this, noting that Wheatley's "concern for protecting the profits from her book reveals a young woman of extraordinary business acumen. Her decision to autograph copies shows that she anticipated that pirated editions would cost her income. She displays in her letter to Wooster a familiarity with the business of bookselling and the need for authentication that increases the likelihood that she had played quite an active role in the marketing of her earlier works" (pp. 140-142). Signed copies of Wheatley's work are rare on the market; RBH last records a signed copy of this title in 2006.
The bibliography of this edition is complex; Stoddard has identified two nearly identical editions of 1773, although he notes there are many further variants within them. The present copy matches all the points of his "Edition 1," including turned chain lines in gatherings A, O-Q, and a 3mm space between lines in the imprint. The copyright statement ("Stationers") is state B and the portrait (without crosshatching) is state A.
Wegelin 432; Sabin 10316; Stoddard & Whitesell 236 (Edition 1). See also Vincent Carretta, Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage (2011); Amanda Law, "The Transatlantic Publication of Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral," in The Women's Print History Project, 10 July 2020; David Waldstreicher, The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: a Poet's Journey through American Slavery (2023); and Life and works of Phillis Wheatley: containing her complete poetical works, numerous letters, and a complete biography of this famous poet of a century and a half ago, edited by G. Herbert Renfro (1916).
In the words of her later editor and champion Gloster Herbert Renfro, "One century ago American literature, then in its infancy, received no small degree of enrichment from the poetic genius of an African slave." Born in West Africa, Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped and enslaved as a young child and sold in 1761 to John and Susanna Wheatley in Boston. They chose the name "Phillis" after the ship on which the girl had endured the Middle Passage. The Wheatley family quickly recognized her intellectual prowess and encouraged her studies in the classics. From a young age, she corresponded with intellectuals like the Mohegan preacher Samuel Occum, and was close with the Mather family. Inspired to write poetry after reading John Addison's experimental drama Rosamond, her verses engage with the tradition of Milton, Pope, and Dryden—as well as ancient writers like Horace, Ovid, and Terence, the latter of whom she specifically calls out in her work as a fellow African. The frontispiece, a portrait of her at her desk writing, is often attributed to the enslaved artist Scipio Moorhead, to whom one of her poems is addressed. This portrait is the first known to depict an American woman writer.
Wheatley’s verse eulogy of English evangelist George Whitefield was published in 1770, gaining the attention of Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon (to whom Whitefield had been the personal chaplain). After a failure to get a book of her poems published in Boston, she turned to the Countess, who became her patron. To convince the printers to undertake the project, she had to submit an attestation that the poetry was truly her work, signed by prominent Boston men who examined her in court; this document is reprinted in the present volume. She traveled to London in 1773 and was greeted as a literary celebrity—Ignatius Sancho dubbed her "Genius in Bondage." But before she was able to meet King George, or even her own patron, she had to return to Boston to attend the ailing Susanna.
Reviews of the book in London were positive, but many drew attention to the hypocrisy of Americans who were lauding Phillis's genius while doing nothing to help her escape enslavement. This negative attention perhaps played a role in the Wheatleys granting Phillis her freedom in November 1773. In 1778 she married John Peters, a free person of color, and endeavored to publish a second volume of poetry. However, due to the economic collapse following the Revolutionary War and American publishers' continued resistance to her work, this effort proved unrealized before her untimely death in 1784.
Roger Stoddard notes that Wheatley "authenticated some copies with her signature on the verso of the title-leaf," as it is here. In her 18 October 1773 letter to David Wooster regarding copies of her book coming from London and the possibility of piracy, she states in no uncertain terms, "If any should be so ungenerous as to reprint them the Genuine Copy may be known, for it is sign'd in my own handwriting." In his biography, Vincent Carretta comments on this, noting that Wheatley's "concern for protecting the profits from her book reveals a young woman of extraordinary business acumen. Her decision to autograph copies shows that she anticipated that pirated editions would cost her income. She displays in her letter to Wooster a familiarity with the business of bookselling and the need for authentication that increases the likelihood that she had played quite an active role in the marketing of her earlier works" (pp. 140-142). Signed copies of Wheatley's work are rare on the market; RBH last records a signed copy of this title in 2006.
The bibliography of this edition is complex; Stoddard has identified two nearly identical editions of 1773, although he notes there are many further variants within them. The present copy matches all the points of his "Edition 1," including turned chain lines in gatherings A, O-Q, and a 3mm space between lines in the imprint. The copyright statement ("Stationers") is state B and the portrait (without crosshatching) is state A.
Wegelin 432; Sabin 10316; Stoddard & Whitesell 236 (Edition 1). See also Vincent Carretta, Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage (2011); Amanda Law, "The Transatlantic Publication of Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral," in The Women's Print History Project, 10 July 2020; David Waldstreicher, The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: a Poet's Journey through American Slavery (2023); and Life and works of Phillis Wheatley: containing her complete poetical works, numerous letters, and a complete biography of this famous poet of a century and a half ago, edited by G. Herbert Renfro (1916).