Zoom

The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence

Name: The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence
Brand: Picador USA
SKU: 9781250321732
Price: 15.99 USD
Availability: InStock

$15.99 $22.00

Discount: $6.01 (28%)

Hurry Up! Only 1 Left in Stock!

Out of stock >

Guarantee safe & Secure checkout

Availability: Only few left!

Contributors:

David Waldstreicher

Publisher:

Picador USA

Binding:

Paperback

Book Category:

Biography & Autobiography, History

Book Subcategory:

Literary Figures, African American & Black, United States

Book Topic:

Revolutionary Period (1775-1800)

Shipping & Return +

The product is eligible for a complimentary return within 30 days from the date of purchase. Furthermore, individual items are shipped within 24 hours of receiving the order.

Rating and Reviews +

Specifications +

Release Date:

3/5/2024

ISBN 13:

9781250321732

Weight:

0.8 lbs

Size:

8.20 x 5.40 x 1.00 inches

Pages:

512

Mint Condition +

product description

Description

A New York Times notable book of 2023 A finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography Winner of the 2024 George Washington Prize

"[An] erudite, enlightening new biography . . . [Waldstreicher's] interpretations equal Wheatley's own intentional verse, making it a joy to follow along as he unpacks her words and their arrangement." --Tiya Miles, The Atlantic

"Thoroughly researched, beautifully rendered and cogently argued . . . The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley is [. . .] historical biography at its best." --Kerri Greenidge, The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

A paradigm-shattering biography of Phillis Wheatley, whose extraordinary poetry set African American literature at the heart of the American Revolution.

Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published in London, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led one of the most extraordinary American lives. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, she was sold to a merchant family in Boston, where she became a noted poet at a young age. Mastering the Bible, Greek and Latin translations, and the works of Pope and Milton, she composed elegies for local elites, celebrated political events, praised warriors, and used her verse to variously lampoon, question, and assert the injustice of her enslaved condition. "Can I then but pray / Others may never feel tyrannic sway?" By doing so, she added her voice to a vibrant, multisided conversation about race, slavery, and discontent with British rule; before and after her emancipation, her verses shook up racial etiquette and used familiar forms to create bold new meanings. She demonstrated a complex but crucial fact of the times: that the American Revolution both strengthened and limited Black slavery.

In this new biography, the historian David Waldstreicher offers the fullest account to date of Wheatley's life and works, correcting myths, reconstructing intimate friendships, and deepening our understanding of her verse and the revolutionary era. Throughout The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley, he demonstrates the continued vitality and resonance of a woman who wrote, in a founding gesture of American literature, "Thy Power, O Liberty, makes strong the weak / And (wond'rous instinct) Ethiopians speak."

About the Author
David Waldstreicher teaches history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and is the author of Slavery's Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification and Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution. He has written for The New York Times Book Review, the Boston Review, and The Atlantic, among other publications.