Dec 17, 2009

The Oxford Companion to English Literature | Wheatley, Phillis

Wheatley, Phillis ( ?1735 – 84 ),
a black poet born in Africa and shipped as a child to the slave-market of Boston, where she was purchased by John Wheatley , who encouraged her literary talent. Her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral were first published in London in 1773 .