Title
Phillis Wheatley large copybook
Summary
Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), poet, born in Africa. As a child she was enslaved and purchased by John Wheatley, merchant tailor, of Boston, Massachusetts. At age 17, her broadside "On the Death of the Reverend George Whitefield," was published in Boston. In 1773, her only book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, containing thirty-eight poems, was published in London. The copybook includes a previously unpublished variant of Phillis Wheatley's poem, "A Hymn to Humanity," which was first published in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (London, September 1773). The poem, dated December 12, 1773, contains significant textual changes and identifies for the first time to whom the poem was dedicated.