Book Description
The past two decades have seen a dramatic resurgence of interest in black women writers, as authors such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison have come to dominate the larger Afro-American literary landscape.Yet the works of the writers who founded and nurtured the black women's literary tradition--nineteenth-century Afro-American women--have remained buried in research libraries or in expensive hard-to-find reprints, often inaccessible to twentieth-century readers.Oxford University Press, in collaboration with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research unit of The New York Public Library, rescued the voice of an entire segment of the black tradition by offering thirty volumes of these compelling and rare works of fiction, poetry, autobiography, biography, essays, and journalism. Responding to the wide recognition this series has received, Oxford now presents four of these volumes in paperback.Each book contains an introduction written by an expert in the field, as well as an overview by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the General Editor.Individually, each of these four works now in paperback--including The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimke, Elizabeth Keckley's Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House, Six Women's Slave Narratives, and The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley--stands as a unique literary contribution in its own right.Collectively providing a rich sampling of the range of works written by black women over the course of more than a century, they pay tribute (now long overdue) to an extraordinary and influential group of Afro-American women. These new editions will enable teachers, students, and general readers of American literature, history, Afro-American culture, and women's studies to hear at last, and learn from, the lost voice of the nineteenth-century black woman writer. ... Read more

Book Description
In 1761, a young girl arrived in Boston on a slave ship, sold to the Wheatley family, and given the name Phillis Wheatley. Struck by Phillis' extraordinary precociousness, the Wheatleys provided her with an education that was unusual for a woman of the time and astonishing for a slave. After studying English and classical literature, geography, the Bible, and Latin, Phillis published her first poem in 1767 at the age of 14, winning much public attention and considerable fame. When Boston publishers who doubted its authenticity rejected an initial collection of her poetry, Wheatley sailed to London in 1773 and found a publisher there for Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.

This volume collects both Wheatley's letters and her poetry: hymns, elegies, translations, philosophical poems, tales, and epyllions-including a poignant plea to the Earl of Dartmouth urging freedom for America and comparing the country's condition to her own. With her contemplative elegies and her use of the poetic imagination to escape an unsatisfactory world, Wheatley anticipated the Romantic Movement of the following century. The appendices to this edition include poems of Wheatley's contemporary African-American poets: Lucy Terry, Jupiter Harmon, and Francis Williams. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A vital foremother of African-American literature
"Complete Writings" brings together a rich collection of the work of Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784). The book has been edited by Vincent Carretta, who also provides an introduction and notes. Wheatley, a Black African-born woman, was taken from her homeland as a child and sold into slavery in the United States. Her owners provided her with an excellent education, and she became a poet: indeed, a foremother of African-American poetry.

This volume contains Wheatley's poems, including the contents of her historic collection "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" (1773).The book also contains more than 20 of her letters, thus allowing readers to appreciate her prose style. As appendixes, the book also contains the writings of three other pioneering New World poets of African heritage: Lucy Terry Prince (c. 1730-1821), Jupiter Hammon (1711-c. 1806), and Francis Williams (c. 1700-c. 1770). Seeing the works of these Black poets helps one to read Wheatley's work in a larger context.

Yes, one could say that some of Wheatley's work is derivative and repetitive. But the best of her poetry is truly extraordinary: technically impressive, moving, and thought-provoking. Much of her work is animated by her fervent evangelical Christian beliefs. But particularly significant are those poems that articulate an African or African-American consciousness. The most noteworthy of her poems invite careful re-reading. And the collection of her letters creates a fascinating portrait of a young African-American woman striving to create a career for herself as a literary artist in the 18th century. This book is essential for those with a serious interest in U.S. history and literature, as well as for those with an interest in African Diaspora studies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

I love it...well written
When, I started reading this book..I was captivated by the power it held.As a parent I encourage mychildren to read this book.I would recommend this book as a family book, if you are teaching your children about Black History...and the power to be Free.LuzD ... Read more

Book Description
A moving celebration of the mother of African American literature, from the pen of a master storyteller and scholar.

The slave Phillis Wheatley literally wrote her way to freedom when, in 1773, she became the first person of African descent to publish a book of poems in the English language. The toast of London, lauded by Europeans as diverse as Voltaire and Gibbon, Wheatley was for a time the most famous black woman in the West. Though Benjamin Franklin received her and George Washington thanked her for poems she dedicated to him, Thomas Jefferson refused to acknowledge her gifts. "Religion, indeed, has produced a Phillis Wheatley," he wrote, "but it could not produce a poet." In other words, slaves have misery in their lives, and they have souls, but they lack the intellectual and aesthetic endowments required to create literature.

In this book based on his 2002 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities at the Library of Congress, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., explores the pivotal roles that Wheatley and Jefferson have played in shaping the black literary tradition.

He brings to life the characters and debates that fermented around Wheatley in her day and illustrates the peculiar history that resulted in Thomas Jefferson's being lauded as a father of the black freedom struggle and Phillis Wheatley's vilification as something of an Uncle Tom. It is a story told with all the lyricism and critical skill that have placed Gates at the forefront of American letters. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A Study of A Poetess's Reception through the Centuries
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s _The Trials Phillis Wheatley_ considers Phillis Wheatley's career through the eyes of her readers over two centuries, from elite Massachussetts whites who in 1772 quizzed Wheatley to determine if she, a young slave, had indeed composed the poems herself, to twentieth-century critics who find her voice inauthentic and too forgiving of her white enslavers.Gates' book is a longer version of the prestigious Jefferson Lecture, which he gave in 2002, and is a great introduction to Phillis Wheatley.Wheatley's writing career, in particular her mastery of the classical forms of eighteenth-century English prosody, is fascinating.

Wheatley was kidnapped as a seven-year old from her home in West Africa in 1761, survived the terrible Middle Passage, and then was sold into bondage to the Wheatley family in Massachusetts.Nine years later in 1770, at the age of 16, despite lacking formal schooling and having only nine years exposure to English, she was a published poet.Two years later in 1772 she published a volume of poetry _Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral_, which was the first book of poems published by a person of African origin.

What is so strong about Gates' book is his discussion of the impact of Wheatley's poems and how her mastery of literacy challenged the racist ideology of slaveholders and their supporters.Wheatley corresponded with George Washington and other luminaries, and the international sensation of her poems prompted Thomas Jefferson to critique them as being unoriginal.Gates argues that Jefferson's critique in _Notes on the State of Virginia_, grounded in racism and defensiveness, ironically shaped African American literature in its vibrant, sustained critique of Jefferson's claims by contemporary and later writers, such as David Walker, William Hamilton, William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, and many others.Gates concludes his book by discussing how Wheatley's reputation slowly changed in the nineteenth century, mainly due to interpretations of one poem, "On Being Brought from Africa to America."Gates writes that for a number of readers, "the paragon of Negro achievement, was now given a new role: race traitor."

Gates' work presents an excellent, readable overview of Wheatley's career by drawing from the breadth of existing scholarship.He makes a strong argument that Wheatley needs to be read with an awareness of late eighteenth-century history and understood for her vital contribution.

Two criticisms of the book:First, I wish Gates had also published Wheatley's poems, which are expensive to purchase and not widely available in bookstores, and then made his work an introduction to the poems.Second, on a related point, I wish that Gates had interpreted more poems.Wheatley's poems are rich with transcultural underpinnings and insights, and it would have been wonderful to read more of his explications of her work.Her work can be challenging for contemporary readers unfamilar with the conventions of eighteenth-century poetry.

Refreshing Reminder from Gates
Gates' book places the writing life of Phillis Wheatley into a context that should prompt readers to reexamine popular condemnations (past and present) of her credibility and literary merit. This text is a refreshing reminder that we readers have a responsibility "to learn to read Wheatley anew, unblinkered by the anxieties of her time and ours. That's the only way to let Phillis Wheatley take a stand. The challenge isn't to read white, or read black; it is to read. If Wheatley stood for anything, it was the creed that culture was, could be, the equal possession of all humanity. It was a lesson she was swift to teach, and that we have been slow to learn" (89-90). This book is a quick read and would be an ideal text for instructors.

An interesting read
In 1773 a young woman burst onto the literary scene. And what made this particular author a sensation? The young woman in question was Phillis Wheatley, an African slave writing poetry in English. Her slender books of poems was a literary first, causing critics to mutter.

Brought before an panel of eighteen learned gentleman of the time, Phillis Wheatley proved that persons of African descent could think, read and write works of literature. For a few brief years, Phillis was a author known to both the colonies and Europe, think Oprah, think Alice Walker, think Maya Angelou of her day. Sadly, with Revolution at hand, her literary career stumbled with Phillis and her only surviving child dying much too young.

But that was not the end of Phillis Wheatley. Her surviving works have endured and been subjected to levels of awe and loathing in the centuries since her death. In some camps, Phillis Wheatley is a mother of the slave narrative, in others a sell-out, an Aunt Thomasina making her then masters happy.

Author Henry Louis Gates, Jr does a wonderful job of looking at the literary life of a much loved and much reviled author. The only jarring point? The covers of this fine volume are much too close together, THE TRIALS OF PHILLIS WHEATLEY was a quick read and I found myself sad to have the book end.

Nice little tribute to Phillis Wheatley
Mostly a summary of the literary career of Phillis Wheatley, a teenaged slave, born in Africa and later bought by John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston for less than ten pounds, who would unknowingly kickstart the African American literary tradition with her "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral," published in 1773.Described by Gates as "the Oprah Winfrey of her time," Wheatley defied the conventional racist wisdom of the time by proving that people of African descent could write poetry and produce European notions of Art.Gates does a good job of tracing the trajectory of her work throughout the years following her sad demise (her poetry would grant her manumission, but she would die free, poor and alone at the age of thirty).Gates' main critique in the book is of the unfair criticism he feels critics of the Black Power Movement gave her, by questioning her "authenticity" and accusing her of being "too white."He ties this in to Thomas Jefferson's criticisms of Wheatley some two-hundred years earlier, who dismissed her poetry as bad enough to prove that Africans indeed were inferior to Anglos in the arena of "reason."Citing a recent poll suggesting that "acting white" was aligned with "speaking standard English, getting straight A's, or even visiting the Smithsonian," Gates uses a bizarre logic to make his ultimate point: "In reviving the ideology of 'authenticity'--especially in a Hip Hop world where too many of our children think it's easier to become Michael Jordan than Vernon Jordan--we have ourselves reforged the manacles of an earlier, admittedly racist era" (p. 84-5).Whether one views Jefferson's or even Amiri Baraka's criticisms of Wheatley's poetry as remotely similar, Gates' little book does a tidy little job of setting up for the reader the historical processes and miracles that allowed for Wheatley to publish the poems (--good or bad--it's up to you to decide!) that initiated the African American literary tradition. ... Read more

Book Description
Introduces the life and accomplishments of the first-ever African-American poet to have her works published, Phillis Wheatley. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Fabulous author!I am looking forward to her book on Stanton
This is a wonderful book on such an important woman in history. I recommend this book for the classroom, libraries, and to have at home. She is a wonderful author who makes you feel connected to these historical icons. I am going to buy her other books as soon as I finish this review. ... Read more

Book Description
The moving story of the first African American woman poet is compellingly told by Kathryn Lasky and brought to life with powerful illustrations by Paul Lee.

"We’ll call her Phillis."

In 1761, a young African girl was sold to the Wheatley family in Boston, who named her Phillis after the slave schooner that had carried her. Kidnapped from her home in Africa and shipped to America, she’d had everything taken from her - her family, her name, and her language.

But Phillis Wheatley was no ordinary young girl. She had a passion to learn, and the Wheatleys encouraged her, breaking with unwritten rule in New England to keep slaves illiterate. Amid the tumult of the Revolutionary War, Phillis Wheatley became a poet and ultimately had a book of verse published, establishing herself as the first African American woman poet this country had ever known. She also found what had been taken away from her and from slaves everywhere: a voice of her own. ... Read more

Book Description