Phillis Wheatley

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Despite her youth at the time she published most of her works, PW is an interesting and original late eighteenth-century poetic voice. Her poems (dozens published in newspapers, as well as collected) and letters range through social feeling, classical allusion, the religious, and the political, with mostly veiled comments on her own peculiar status as a black African slave writing for free people. Her race, gender, and enslaved status give her a particular interest, but her literary achievement makes a solid part of that interest.
Oval engraving of Phillis Wheatley, frontispiece to her "Poems on Various Occasions," 1773. She sits at a desk writing with a quill pen on paper, a book and ink bottle nearby, wearing a servant's white cap, wide collar, and apron. Text surrounding the image reads: "Phillis Wheatley, Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston."

Milestones

About 1753

PW was born in Africa, probably in Gambia.
Wheatley, Phillis, and Henry Louis Gates. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley. Editor Shields, John C., Oxford University Press.
144, 303
Gates, Henry Louis et al. “Phillis Wheatley’s Struggle for Freedom in her Poetry and Prose”. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley, edited by John C. Shields, Oxford University Press, pp. 229-70.
232

21 December 1767

The appearance of a poem by PW , On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin, in a Boston newspaper was remarkable (though not a first) because of Wheatley's status as a chattel slave.
Wheatley, Phillis, and Henry Louis Gates. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley. Editor Shields, John C., Oxford University Press.
337-8

29 February 1772

PW 's owner, John Wheatley , put out proposals for collecting and publishing a volume of her poems; but the project did not go through.
Wheatley, Phillis, and Henry Louis Gates. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley. Editor Shields, John C., Oxford University Press.
188-9
Gates, Henry Louis, and Phillis Wheatley. “Foreword: In Her Own Write”. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley, edited by John C. Shields and John C. Shields, Oxford University Press, p. vii - xxii.
ix

By October 1773

PW 's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in London, certified to be the unaided work of a Negro servant.
Wheatley, Phillis, and Henry Louis Gates. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley. Editor Shields, John C., Oxford University Press.
1

5 December 1784

Phillis Peters (formerly PW ) died in poverty, largely forgotten.
Wheatley, Phillis, and Henry Louis Gates. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley. Editor Shields, John C., Oxford University Press.
339

Biography

Birth and Enslavement

About 1753

PW was born in Africa, probably in Gambia.
Wheatley, Phillis, and Henry Louis Gates. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley. Editor Shields, John C., Oxford University Press.
144, 303
Gates, Henry Louis et al. “Phillis Wheatley’s Struggle for Freedom in her Poetry and Prose”. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley, edited by John C. Shields, Oxford University Press, pp. 229-70.
232

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