The Writings of Phillis Wheatley

This edition includes all of the known surviving writings of the poet Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), several of which have been discovered since the last attempt at a complete edition was published in 2001. Of the fifty-seven poems, as well as their authoritative variants, forty-six were published during her lifetime. Versions of nine of them were published before September 1773. Wheatley published thirty-eight works in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (London, 1773). Only seven of her poems were published between 1773 and her death in 1784. Eleven poems survive only in manuscript versions. This edition also includes all of Wheatley's extant prose writings: twenty-three letters and four subscription proposals. It includes as well the three known surviving letters written to Wheatley. Wheatley's writings are accompanied by an Introduction to her life and times, as well as extensive textual and explanatory notes.

Vincent Carretta's edition will be essential reading for anyone seriously interested in Wheatley Peters's life and work. .. The vanishing point of [Wheatley Peters's] work stands at the far side of the history of enslavement. Given that the poems do exist, the critical imperative is to think carefully about how, and under what conditions, they came to be. Carretta makes a crucial contribution to this project.

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