Description
In 1773,?Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral?became?the?first book of poetry by an African-American author to be published. At the tender age of seven, Phillis had been brought to Massachusetts as a slave and sold to the well-to-do Wheatley family. There, she threw herself into education, and soon she was devouring the classics and writing verse with whatever she had to hand - odes in chalk on the walls of the house.