Darren Sutherland
Specialist
Property From the Collection of Raymond Adams
Lot 107
FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION OF AN AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN.
WHEATLEY, PHILLIS. 1753-1784.
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.... London: A. Bell, sold by Cox and Berry, Boston, 1773.
24 April – 4 May 2023, 12:00 EDT
Online, New YorkSold for US$38,175 inc. premium
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FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION OF AN AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN.
WHEATLEY, PHILLIS. 1753-1784. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.... London: A. Bell, sold by Cox and Berry, Boston, 1773.
8vo (173 x 110 mm). Engraved portrait frontis, dedication to the Countess of Huntingdon, "To the Publick," announcement, 4 pp ads at rear (Stoddard's state A). Contemporary calf, neatly rebacked, frontispiece chipped, repair at upper margin, title page, repair to lower margin throughout.
[BOUND WITH:] BLAIR, ROBERT. The Grave: A Poem. London: M. Fenner, 1743. Margins shaved with some text loss.
Provenance: Raymond Adams (1898-1987, noted Thoreau scholar and collector, founder of the Thoreau Society); by descent.
FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION OF AN AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN, Stoddard's Edition 1. Phillis Wheatley, named after the boat that brought her, came to America at the age of 8 as a slave. Remarkably, she was educated within the Wheatley family, and before she was 20 she had gained an astonishing reputation as a poet. Her poetry was published in newspapers as early as 1767, but it was the Boston publication of "An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of ... the Reverend and Learned George Whitefield" in 1770 that brought her international renown. At the age of 18 she had 28 poems ready for publication, and the family solicited subscriptions in 1772 through the Boston papers. Turning to London, Wheatley sent the Whitefield poem to Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, a great supporter of evangelical and abolitionist causes, who agreed to fund the publication through publisher Archibald Bell. Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects was published in 1773, including 39 poems, and captured the attention of important early American patriots such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and Thomas Paine.
The portrait frontispiece (here in Stoddard's State B), often attributed to Scipio Moorhead (who also is the subject of one of Wheatley's poems in the book, "To S.M. a young African Painter, on seeing his Works") stands as the first known individual portrait of an American woman of African descent. Wheatley's Poems is "... one of the most important books relating to African-American literature and one of the most celebrated relating to a black author" (Blockson One-Hundred and One 68). ESTC T153734; Sabin 10316; Stoddard 236.
8vo (173 x 110 mm). Engraved portrait frontis, dedication to the Countess of Huntingdon, "To the Publick," announcement, 4 pp ads at rear (Stoddard's state A). Contemporary calf, neatly rebacked, frontispiece chipped, repair at upper margin, title page, repair to lower margin throughout.
[BOUND WITH:] BLAIR, ROBERT. The Grave: A Poem. London: M. Fenner, 1743. Margins shaved with some text loss.
Provenance: Raymond Adams (1898-1987, noted Thoreau scholar and collector, founder of the Thoreau Society); by descent.
FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION OF AN AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN, Stoddard's Edition 1. Phillis Wheatley, named after the boat that brought her, came to America at the age of 8 as a slave. Remarkably, she was educated within the Wheatley family, and before she was 20 she had gained an astonishing reputation as a poet. Her poetry was published in newspapers as early as 1767, but it was the Boston publication of "An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of ... the Reverend and Learned George Whitefield" in 1770 that brought her international renown. At the age of 18 she had 28 poems ready for publication, and the family solicited subscriptions in 1772 through the Boston papers. Turning to London, Wheatley sent the Whitefield poem to Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, a great supporter of evangelical and abolitionist causes, who agreed to fund the publication through publisher Archibald Bell. Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects was published in 1773, including 39 poems, and captured the attention of important early American patriots such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and Thomas Paine.
The portrait frontispiece (here in Stoddard's State B), often attributed to Scipio Moorhead (who also is the subject of one of Wheatley's poems in the book, "To S.M. a young African Painter, on seeing his Works") stands as the first known individual portrait of an American woman of African descent. Wheatley's Poems is "... one of the most important books relating to African-American literature and one of the most celebrated relating to a black author" (Blockson One-Hundred and One 68). ESTC T153734; Sabin 10316; Stoddard 236.