“Some Account of Phillis, a Learned Negro Girl” [and her poem] “On Recollection” [in] The Gentleman’s Magazine. Vol. 43, 1773

first edition

1773 · London

by WHEATLEY, Phillis

London: Printed for D. Henry at St. John’s Gate, 1773. Very Good. First edition. Volume 43 (January-December and Supplement). Octavo. [2], 655, [15]pp., illustrated from woodcuts and numerous engraved plates, some folded. Contains 12 monthly issues and a Supplement, with a two-page Preface at the front and 15-page index at the back. In the original calf, gilt spine, edges speckled light red. Lacking both boards, spine back is worn, lacking the first general title page and final index leaf, else very good or better, the pages and plates are tight and bright. The May issue contains a contemporary article on the 1773 publication in London of “poems written (truncated) by Phillis, a negro servant of Mr. Wheatley, of Boston … .” The article includes an account of her life and writings written by Mr. Wheatley, and testimony by “the most respectable persons in Boston, certifying …” that the poems were “written by Phillis, a young negro girl, who was but a few years since brought an uncultivated barbarian from Africa … .” The September issue prints Wheatley’s long poem: “On Recollection.” This poem “taken from a small collection of Poems on Various Subjects, just published …” includes an explanatory note added to authenticate her authorship.

This volume also includes reviews of two important abolitionist works. The first, in the January issue, is a review of “An Argument in the Case of James Sommersett, a Negro, lately determined in the Court of King’s Bench, wherein it is attempted to be demonstrated the present unlawfulness of domestic Slavery in England. By Mr. [Francis] Hargrave, one of the Counsel for the Negro.” The second, in the October issue, is a review of the 1773 abolitionist poem “The Dying Negro: A Poetical Epistle from a Black to his intended wife.” Published in England by John Bicknell and Thomas Day, it has been called “the first significant piece of verse propaganda directed explicitly against the English slave systems.” Also notable are two long accounts of James Cook’s “voyage round the world” published in the December issue and Supplement; together with an “Epitome of Commodore Byron’s voyage round the world” in the July issue and an “Epitome of Captain Wallis’s voyage round the world” in the September issue. Notable among the engraved plates is one of the first published illustrations of a kangaroo: “An Animal of a new Species found on the Coast of New South Wales” engraved after George Stubbs in the July issue; and an engraving of a (M?ori) “War-Canoe of the savages in the South Seas” depicted underneath an engraved “branch of a Bread-fruit tree.”

An historically important early volume of *The Gentleman’s Magazine* dating from the lead-up to the Revolutionary War. (Inventory #: 560373)

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