In The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle. London: Printed for D. Henry at St. John’s Gate, [1773]. First edition. Containing the first appearance of Some Account of Phillis, A Learned Negro Girl (page 226), a defense of Phillis Wheatley’s education and poetic skills, as well as a very early appearance of Wheatley’s own poem On Recollection (page 456).

Kidnapped from Gambia and enslaved in the American colonies, Phillis Wheatley rose to prominence as a poet. Purchased by the Wheatley family at the age of 7, she quickly stood out for her creative mind; “soon she was immersed in the Bible, astronomy, geography, history, British literature, and the Greek and Latin classics” (Poetry Foundation). As a young woman, she began writing a collection of poetry and sought subscribers for their publication. Wheatley was hailed by dignitaries, scholars, and activists who anxiously awaited the release of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), which would become the first

volume of poetry published by an African American in modern times.

When critics called her authorship into question, Some Account of Phillis, which appeared in London’s The Gentleman’s Magazine, called on an authority to present a defense of Wheatley’s authentic talent. The piece documents John Wheatley’s attestation that “as to her writing, her own curiosity led her to it; and this she learned in so short a time.” The author encourages readers to purchase the volume for themselves and judge its contents. He also provides an activist incentive: “She now is under the disadvantage of serving as a slave in a family in Boston. It is hoped that the profits of this publication will be applied toward purchasing her freedom.” Wheatley’s fame only continued to grow and she was later manumitted.

Later in this same volume is a very early and rare appearance of Wheatley’s own poem On Recollection, which first appeared in 1772 in The London Magazine before being reworked and being published in polished form in 1773 in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. This is the third publication of the poem, on page 456, and it is a work that has been noted as ahead of its time. “Wheatley was among the f irst innovators of sentimentality with this poem, and it is precisely because of the politics of race which promotes such an innovation... Wheatley discovered the advantages, in the task of overcoming oppression, of constructing a sentimental poem that is genuinely intersubjective rather than subjective. What an examination of On Recollection shows us is that the Romantic, expressivist aesthetic she participates in, allegedly so spontaneous, can be seen as much more rhetorically manipulative” (Finch).