Black Narratives

Phillis Wheatley

• Publisher: Mint Editions
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781513277820
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

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 literature, with some critics arguing that Wheatley's poems proved detrimental to the struggle of enslaved African Americans. Whether Wheatley made excuses for slavery or, as some have argued, included subtle critiques of the institution in her writing, her talent and importance to the history of African American literature remain undisputed.

Despite her status as a slave, Phillis Wheatley seems to have viewed herself as a blessed individual, a woman for whom life itself was a sign of God's grace, and in whom talent arose in the form of a foreign language. Many of her poems—elegies, odes, and monologues—are aimed at others. Whether in mourning, in praise, or in warning, Wheatley frequently offers her own voice to university students, royalty, God, the muses, and deceased infants. When she does offer glimpses of herself, for instance, in her poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America, " she provides a complex perspective on her status as a slave: "'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, / Taught my benighted soul to understand / That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too." While her words may seem strange to our modern view of the American institution of slavery, they provide an important historical lens onto the adoption of Christianity by African American slaves, who developed a faith grounded in resistance, hope, and redemption.

This edition of Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• To Maecenas
• On Virtue
• To the University of Cambridge, in New-England
• To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty 1768
• On being brought from Africa to America
• On the Death of the Rev. Dr. Sewell, 1769
• On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield 1770
• On the Death of a young Lady of Five Years of Age
• On the Death of a young Gentleman
• To a Lady on the Death of her Husband
• Goliath of Gath
• Thoughts on the Works of Providence
• To a Lady on the Death of three Relations
• To a Clergyman on the Death of his Lady
• An Hymn to the Morning
• An Hymn to the Evening
• Isaiah LXIII. 1–8
• On Recollection
• On Imagination
• A Funeral Poem on the Death of C. E. an Infant of Twelve Months
• To Captain H—D, of the 65th Regiment
• To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for North-America, &c
• Ode to Neptune
• To a Lady on her coming to North-America with her Son, for the Recovery of her Health
• To a Lady on her Remarkable Preservation in an Hurricane in North-Carolina
• To a Lady and her Children, on the Death of her Son and their Brother
• To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Lady’s Brother and Sister, and a Child of the Name of Avis, aged one Year
• On the Death of Dr. Samuel Marshall 1771
• To a Gentleman on his Voyage to Great-Britain for the Recovery of his Health
• To the Rev. Dr. Thomas Amory, on reading his Sermons on Daily Devotion, in which that Duty is recommended and assisted
• On the Death of J. C. an Infant
• An Hymn to Humanity
• To the Honourable T. H. Esq; on the Death of his Daughter
• Niobe in Distress for her Children Slain by Apollo, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book VI and from a view of the Painting of Mr. Richard Wilson
• To S. M. a young African Painter, on seeing his Works
• To his Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, on the Death of his Lady March 24, 1773
• A Farewel To America. to Mrs. S. W.
• A Rebus, by I. B.
• An Answer to the Rebus, by the Author of these Poems
• A Note About the Author
• A Note from the Publisher