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To Miss A__ M__, Humbly Inscribed by the Authoress." From The Annual Register or a View of the History, Politics and Literature for the Year 1772. London: J. Dodsley, 1773. Full Description: [WHEATLEY, Phillis]. Recollection. "To Miss A__ M__, Humbly Inscribed by the Authoress." [From] The Annual Register or a View of the History, Politics and Literature for the Year 1772. London: J. Dodsley, 1773. Phillis Wheatley's fourth published poem, Recollection appears here in the Annual Register or 1772. This poem was published shortly after in Wheatley's first published book "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" (1773). Not only was this Wheatley's first published book, but it was the first volume of poetry by an African American published in modern times. The poem appears on page 214-215 in the second part of the Register. It is printed anonymously with the heading that reads "Verses by a young African Negro Woman, at Boston in New-England; who did not quit her own country till she was ten years old, and has not been above eight in Boston." First edition of the register and first appearance of this poem. Octavo (8 x 5 1/8 inches; 205 x 130 mm). [4], 105, 65-256; 246, [9, contents], [1, blank] pp. Full contemporary tan speckled calf. Boards double-ruled in gilt. Spine stamped and numbered in gilt. Brown calf spine label, lettered in blind. Top edge dyed brown, others speckled red. Board edges tooled in blind. Outer hinges. Spine a bit darkened and gilt rubbed. A small portion of spine label chipped. Previous owner's armorial bookplate on front pastedown. Overall a very good copy. "Wheatley wrote at a time when women suffered great discouragement for expressing political and literary thoughts. She made a brief visit to England in 1773 during which her Poems. were printed. A second London edition appeared in the same year. Wheatley has been called African America's peerless and was the first African American to publish a book of any nature. The first edition of Wheatley's Poems. are considered one of the most important books relating to African-American literature and one of the most celebrated relating to a black author." (Charles L. Blockson, A Commented Bibliography of One Hundred and One Influential Books By and About People of African Descent (1556-1982). A Collector's Choice). "Phillis Wheatley, later Peters, 1753?-1784, slave and poet. Born in Africa, she was shipped to Boston, Mass. in 1761, aged about seven, and bought for Susannah W. (wife of a rich tailor), who with her teenage daughter took the unusual step of educating her. Writing poems by 1765, publishing one in a newspaper in 1767, she was noticed in society as a curiosity. Proposals for publishing a volume by subscription at Boston in 1772 failed: next year her respiratory complaints caused the W.s to send her on a visit to London; there her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, appeared in 1773, certified by prominent citizens the unaided work of a 'Negro servant'. She was both lionized as an untaught genius, and savaged in the Public Advertiser as part of 'a Flood of female Literature'; she kept all her life a copy of Paradise Lost given her by the Lord Mayor of London. Her work is fluent, polished, not merely conventional. She expresses fervent Christian piety, celebrates liberty of various kinds, laments a large number of public and private deaths (many of children), and praises a black artist's work. She calls Africa 'land of errors', 'dark abodes', yet paints her father's 'excruciating sorrow' at her capture. Freed on her return, she married in 1778 another free black, John Peters. She published a few more poems, and made vain proposals for another volume, 1779, but sank into poverty (her husband jailed for debt), drudgery, illness, and the birth and death of three babies." (Virginia Blain et al., The Feminist Companion to Literature in English, pp. 1155-56). HBS 69320. $3,000.
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