Phillis Wheatley Manuscript Poem
"A Poem on the Death of Charles Eliot ...," manuscript poem by Phillis Wheatley, 1 September 1772
This manuscript is Phillis Wheatley's original draft of "A Poem on the Death of Charles Eliot ...." Wheatley included this piece in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, the first published book of poetry by an African American. The poem commemorates the one-year-old Charles Eliot, emphasizing that the baby died in a "pure" state and would be happier in heaven. Born in West Africa about 1753, Wheatley was named for the slave ship, the Phillis, that brought her to Boston in 1761, and the Wheatley family who purchased her. The Wheatley's daughter Mary tutored her, and her education resembled that of a young woman in an elite Boston family. She published numerous individual poems in addition to her book.
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