The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley

The past two decades have seen a dramatic resurgence of interest in black women writers, as authors such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison have come to dominate the larger Afro-American literary landscape. Yet the works of the writers who founded and nurtured the black women's literary tradition--nineteenth-century Afro-American women--have remained buried in research libraries or in expensive hard-to-find reprints, often inaccessible to twentieth-centuryreaders. Oxford University Press, in collaboration with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research unit of The New York Public Library, rescued the voice of an entiresegment of the black tradition by offering thirty volumes of these compelling and rare works of fiction, poetry, autobiography, biography, essays, and journalism. Responding to the wide recognition this series has received, Oxford now presents four of these volumes in paperback. Each book contains an introduction written by an expert in the field, as well as an overview by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the General Editor. Individually, each of these four works now inpaperback--including The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimké, Elizabeth Keckley's Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House, Six Women's Slave Narratives, and The Collected Works ofPhillis Wheatley--stands as a unique literary contribution in its own right. Collectively providing a rich sampling of the range of works written by black women over the course of more than a century, they pay tribute (now long overdue) to an extraordinary and influential group of Afro-American women. These new editions will enable teachers, students, and general readers of American literature, history, Afro-American culture, and women's studies to hear at last, and learn from, thelost voice of the nineteenth-century black woman writer.

“"What an astonishing gift...this collection is!...To have all of these black women writers' works together in one collection seems almost a fabulous dream."--Alice Walker”

"Excellent analysis of Wheatley's poetry, presenting new, dimensional insights."--Regina Jennings, Franklin and Marshall College"Terrific."--Ronna C. Johnson, Tufts University"The volume is a generous gift of exemplary and painstaking scholarship. Those who have never before encountered Shields' multiform Phillis will meet a friend in the poet and in this critic-bard."--Linda Susan Beard, Michigan State University"The notes and other supporting materials (criticism and variant poems and letters) are a teacher's dream. I could not imagine my early African-American Writers course without this edition. It is reasonably priced yet very expensive, even elaborate, in its conception."--William W. Cook, Dartmouth CollegePraise for the series:"A major contribution to American literary history....Now, through this collection, the thoughts, perspectives, imagination, and voices of nineteenth-century Afro-American women are accessible to the general public."--Black American Literature Forum"In an editorial feat of epic proportions, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has rescued the vast writings of nineteenth-century black women from oblivion....He has reinstated black literary ancestresses to their positions of prominence....Groundbreaking."--Marcellus Blount, The Village Voice Literary Supplement"What an astonishing gift...this collection is!"--Alice Walker"The collaboration among The Schomburg Center, Oxford University Press, and these exceptional scholars is an extraordinary event...but the collection is a spectacular achievement."--Toni Morrison"Excellent analysis of Wheatley's poetry, presenting new, dimensional insights."--Regina Jennings, Franklin and Marshall College"Terrific."--Ronna C. Johnson, Tufts University"The volume is a generous gift of exemplary and painstaking scholarship. Those who have never before encountered Shields' multiform Phillis will meet a friend in the poet and in this critic-bard."--Linda Susan Beard, Michigan State University"The notes and other supporting materials (criticism and variant poems and letters) are a teacher's dream. I could not imagine my early African-American Writers course without this edition. It is reasonably priced yet very expensive, even elaborate, in its conception."--William W. Cook, Dartmouth CollegePraise for the series:"A major contribution to American literary history....Now, through this collection, the thoughts, perspectives, imagination, and voices of nineteenth-century Afro-American women are accessible to the general public."--Black American Literature Forum"In an editorial feat of epic proportions, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has rescued the vast writings of nineteenth-century black women from oblivion....He has reinstated black literary ancestresses to their positions of prominence....Groundbreaking."--Marcellus Blount, The Village Voice Literary Supplement"What an astonishing gift...this collection is!"--Alice Walker"The collaboration among The Schomburg Center, Oxford University Press, and these exceptional scholars is an extraordinary event...but the collection is a spectacular achievement."--Toni Morrison"Extraordinary....The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers allows us for the first time to see clearly the full dimensions of the literary achievements of black women....This magnificent project will dramatically change the landscape of [African-American] cultural history."--Eric J. Sundquist, The New York Times Book Review"An extraordinary feat of literary archeology....When Frederick Douglass was asked for the names of important black women authors, he replied that he knew of none. A Voice From the South had been published that year. Douglass' view of literature has reigned as truth for nearly a century; indeed, it's likely that only an undertaking as splashy as the Oxford series has a chance to dislodge it."--Newsweek"An extraordinary feat of literary archeology."--Newsweek"This resurrection of a black female literary tradition transforms the shape of Afro-American letters....Reading the nineteenth-century black women writers [these rising scholars] bring us in The Schomburg Library, I feel as if I were watching a gigantic ebony figure being unearthed. It is a woman writing."--The Washington Post Book World"This resurrection of a black female literary tradition transforms the shape of Afro-American letters....[With] The Schomburg Library, I feel as if I were watching a gigantic ebony figure being unearthed. It is a woman writing."--The Washington Post Book World"A literary treasure-chest....A collection we will have to turn to again and again....Here is not just one voice, but many--all lifted in a collective song of work, commitment and exhortation to pass it on."--The Women's Review of Books"A literary treasure-chest....A collection we will have to turn to again and again."--The Women's Review of Books"A landmark publication."--EssencePraise for The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley:"Greatly expands the Wheatley canon with neglected and variant poems and with several of her letters."--The Women's Review of Books"Never before reprinted outside of original publication."--Publishers Weekly"Questions of race, gender, and literary form intersect in the poetry the Schomburg Library presents. Phyllis Wheatley's poems are read freshly in the light of what John C. Shields calls her 'poetics of liberation.'"--Jean Fagan Yellin, The Washington Post Book World"Wonderful."--Eric J. Sundquist, The New York Times Book Review"[An] excellent collection of Wheatley's poems and letters and superb and provocative commentary by John C. Shields. This is an important and timely volume."--Russell J. Reising, Marquette University

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is Chairman of the Department of Afro-American Studies and W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University.

The past two decades have seen a dramatic resurgence of interest in black women writers, as authors such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison have come to dominate the larger Afro-American literary landscape. Yet the works of the writers who founded and nurtured the black women's literary tradition--nineteenth-century Afro-American women--have remained buried in research libraries or in expensive hard-to-find reprints, often inaccessible to twentieth-century readers. Oxford University Press, in collaboration with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research unit of The New York Public Library, rescued the voice of an entire segment of the black tradition by offering thirty volumes of these compelling and rare works of fiction, poetry, autobiography, biography, essays, and journalism. Responding to the wide recognition this series has received, Oxford now presents four of these volumes in paperback. Each book contains an introduction written by an expert in the field, as well as an overview by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the General Editor. Individually, each of these four works now in paperback--including The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimké, Elizabeth Keckley's Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House, Six Women's Slave Narratives, and The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley--stands as a unique literary contribution in its own right. Collectively providing a rich sampling of the range of works written by black women over the course of more than a century, they pay tribute (now long overdue) to an extraordinary and influential group of Afro-American women. These new editions will enable teachers, students, and general readers of American literature, history, Afro-American culture, and women's studies to hear at last, and learn from, the lost voice of the nineteenth-century black woman writer.

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