The University of South Carolina has acquired a first edition book by Phillis Wheatley, a former slave who went on to become one of America's most celebrated poets.
The school paid $35,000 for one of roughly 100 existing first editions of Wheatley's "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral," published in London in August 1773. It will be housed in the rare books and special collections section at the university's Thomas Cooper Library.
"As one of the first published African-American writers, Phillis Wheatley achieved unusual stature in the 18th-century Atlantic world," said Daniel Littlefield, director of the university's African-American research program. "USC's offering of a searchable digital rendering of her work will be of immense importance to scholars of American and African-American literature, history and society."
Wheatley, who published her first poem when she was 13, was born in 1753 in Africa, kidnapped by slave traders and sold on the auction block when she was 7 to a prosperous white Boston family. She was able to learn English in about a year and a half.
She was celebrated in her lifetime and recited her poetry before prominent figures such as George Washington.
Wheatley was given her freedom shortly after the publication of her book in August 1773. The first American edition of Wheatley's "Poems" was published in 1876, two years after her death.
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