The Cambridge Introduction to Phillis Wheatley Peters

Scholars, students, and general readers should find compelling the account of how Wheatley Peters, enslaved and barely twenty years old, became the first Black author to publish a book. She became the unofficial poet laureate of the American Revolution, only to die in poverty and relative obscurity in 1784.

In 1773 Phillis Wheatley Peters became the first person of African descent to publish a book, when she was barely twenty years old, and still enslaved. Her book made her the earliest international celebrity of African descent, just a dozen years after she had been brought from Africa to America. She became the unofficial poet laureate of the American Revolution, only to die in poverty and relative obscurity in 1784. Recent biographical discoveries related to John Peters and Phillis Wheatley's marriage to him in 1778 have led to significant reassessments of her life and character. As the Cambridge Introduction to Phillis Wheatley Peters demonstrates, she has subsequently become recognized as a pioneer of American and African American literature. Her standing as a transnational literary figure is increasingly appreciated as criticism of her writings has become more sophisticated.