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...

A biography of an African girl brought to New England as a slave in 1761 who became famous on both sides of the Atlantic as the first Black poet in America.

"A collection of original poems speaking to the life and times of Phillis Wheatley, a Colonial America-era poet brought to Boston as a slave"--

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

The life of the woman who, although a slave, gained renown throughout the colonies as the first important black American poet.

A biography of the former slave, Phillis Wheatley, who became known as a poet and social commentator.

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.