1773 PHILLIS WHEATLEY. On Being Brought from Africa to America in The Universal Magazine.

A first rate example of a very desirable volume containing vital early printings documenting the London reception and literary debut of Phillis Wheatley, the first published African American poet.

In September 1773, while Phillis was visiting London to secure the publication of her volume, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, The Universal Magazine published her poetry alongside an introductory attestation or biographical notice detailing her background as an extraordinary young enslaved woman owned by John Wheatley, a prominent tailor and merchant of Boston. The magazine famously featured the written statement from John Wheatley attesting to her genius, intellect, and the authenticity of her authorship, which was critical in validating her work to a skeptical European and American audience. These pages represent one of the earliest British magazine appearances of her poetry, preceding or coinciding directly with her manumission upon her return to Boston later that autumn.

The Universal Magazine is rich in copperplate illustrations, maps, and portraits that defined late 18th-century British print culture. Often pilfered, our volume lacks but one example, a metaphorical illustration of the month of October. It retains the far more significant plates detailing scientific and mechanical developments, alongside detailed topographical maps of British counties and foreign territories. 

And we cannot neglect to mention that the second half of the year 1773 stands as one of the most volatile periods leading up to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. And The Universal Magazine covered it, printing ongoing intelligence, parliamentary debates, and news updates from the American colonies following the passage of the Tea Act in May 1773. Readers following the monthly news sections were given a front-row seat to the mounting colonial resistance in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia over taxation and East India Company monopolies. These reports directly track the boiling tensions in Massachusetts that culminated in the Boston Tea Party in December 1773. A fascinating snapshot of public perception in England of the American crisis as it unfolded in real time.

[Phillis Wheatley. John Wheatley] The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure. Containing News, Letters, Debates, Poetry, Musick, Biography, History, Geography, Voyages, Criticism, Translations, Philosophy, Mathematicks, Husbandry, Gardening, Cookery, Chemistry, Mechanicks, Trade, Navigation, Architecture, and Other Arts and Sciences, Which may render it Instructive and Entertaining to Gentry, Merchants, Farmers, and Tradesmen, etc. July to December, 1773. Complete. 377pp + Index. 

Good + to very good in likely original half calf with marbled boards. Rubbed as shown, minor chips at the head of the spine. Text and plates in exceptionally crisp and clean condition. An occasional note in the hand of the original owner, R. Musgrove.