Ocean State Libraries

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) is the first book of poetry published by an African American author. Written while Wheatley was a slave in Boston, the collection was published in England. Regarded for her mastery of classical poetic form, Phillis Wheatley earned praise from Voltaire and George Washington. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral has long been the subject of scholarly work on the history of African American...

Story of Phyllis Wheatley of Boston, Mass., a slave, who published a book of poetry in 1773.

Traces the life of the Black American poet who was born in Africa, brought over to New England as a slave, and published her first poem while still a teenager.

"Arriving in Boston aboard a slave ship in 1761, Phillis Wheatley began what would eventually be a storied life in American. Primary sources bring to life the story of America's first African American female poet. Easy-to-read text highlights how Wheatley learned to speak English and to read and write. She even learned to read Latin. Soon she was writing poetry, but no one in Boston would publish her book because she was a slave. She had to look to...

The remarkable story of the young slave Phillis Wheatley, America's first black poet.

Phillis Wheatley was a determined woman who was kidnapped as a child in Africa and sold into slavery in Boston. After being freed, she became the first African American woman to publish a book.

Follows the life of one of America's first black poets from her sale as a child slave on the Boston auction block to her death as an impoverished freedwoman in 1784.