The Writings of Phillis Wheatley Peters

Honorable Mention, Modern Language Association Prize for a Scholarly Edition, Modern Language Association

This edition includes all of the known surviving writings of the poet Phillis Wheatley Peters (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 Peters 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 Peters' extant prose writings: twenty-three letters and four subscription proposals. It includes as well the three known surviving letters written to Wheatley Peters. Wheatley Peters' writings are accompanied by an Introduction to her life and times, as well as extensive textual and explanatory notes.