Charlotte Brontë

Louisa Alcott

Gertrude Stein

Jane Austen

Emily Brontë

Phillis Wheatley

Celebrate women and stories with these heartwarming selections from some of literature's most beloved writers in this gift-worthy collection.

Women Who Wrote: Stories and Poems from Audacious Literary Mavens

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral

The poetry of Americaís first published black poet was published before the Revolutionary War and recognized throughout the English-speaking world. Phillis Wheatley was born in Africa, sold as a slave in America, and became a celebrity in Europe. This volume also contains a short memoir of her life.

A Native African and a Slave

Poems of Phillis Wheatley

A definitive collection of writings by the eighteenth-century American slave and author includes her letters, poetry, translations, short fiction, and essays, along with poetry by some of Wheatley's contemporary African-American poets--Lucy Terry, Jupiter Harmon, and Francis Williams. Original.

Complete Writings

This book is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS series. The creators of this series are united by passion for literature and driven by the intention of making all public domain books available in printed format again - worldwide. At tredition we believe that a great book never goes out of style. Several mostly non-profit literature projects provide content to tredition. To support their good work, tredition donates a portion of the proceeds from each sold copy. As a reader of a TREDITION CLASSICS book, you support our mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion.

Includes MLA Style Citations for Scholarly Secondary Sources, Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles and Critical Essays

On Being Brought from Africa to America and Other Poems

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) was the first published African American poet whose writings helped create the genre of African American literature. She was born in Gambia, Africa, and became a slave at age seven. She was purchased by the Boston Wheatley family, who taught her to read and write, and helped encouraged her poetry. The 1773 publication of Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects: Religious and Moral brought her fame, with dignitaries such as George Washington praising her work. Wheatley also toured England and was praised in a poem by fellow African American poet Jupiter Hammon. Wheatley was emancipated by her owners after her poetic success, but stayed with the Wheatley family until the death of her former master and the breakup of his family. She then married a free black man, who soon left her. She died in poverty in 1784 while working on a second book of poetry, which has now been lost. Amongst her poems are: To the King's Most Excellent Majesty (1768), Atheism (1769), A Poem of the Death of Charles Eliot (1772), and Liberty and Peace (1784).

Religious and Moral

Poems on Various Subjects

Contains the complete works of the first African-American to publish a book of poetry

The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley

August Nemo

Alexandre Dumas

Frederick Douglass

Booker T. Washington

Machado de Assis

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Charles W. Chesnutt

Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Pauline E. Hopkins

Frances Harper

Lucy Terry

Jupiter Hammon

Welcome to the book series 7 best short stories specials, a selection dedicated to a special subject, featuring works by noteworthy authors. The texts were chosen based on their relevance, renown and interest. This edition is dedicated to Black Authors. Black literature is a literary production in which the subject of the writing is the black people themselves. This cultural phenomena is very significant in countries dominated by white culture and that received forced immigrations from the slavery regime, such as the USA and Brazil. Through black literature, black characters and authors recover their integrity as human beings, breaking the vicious cycle of racism, also rooted in literary practice. In addition to short stories, this book also contains essays, biographical accounts, and poetry by pioneers of black literature, providing a rich and varied content. This book contains the following texts: Short Stories: - Violets by Alice Dunbar-Nelson; - The Boy and The Bayonet by Paul Laurence Dunbar; - The Fortune-Teller by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis; - A Matter of Principle by Charles W. Chesnutt; - The Two Offers by Frances Harper; - A Bal Masqué by Alexandre Dumas; - The New York Subway by Pauline E. Hopkins. Bonus content: - Industrial Education for the Negro by Booker T. Washington; - My Escape from Slavery by Frederick Douglass; - Bars Fight by Lucy Terry; - On Virtue by Phillis Wheatley; - An Address to the Negroes in the State of New-York by Jupiter Hammon.

7 best short stories - Black Authors

Mary Prince

Solomon Northup

Elizabeth Keckley

Olaudah Equiano

Charles Ball

Louis Hughes

Josiah Henson

Lucy A. Delaney

William Robinson

Thomas H. Jones

Annie L. Burton

Old Elizabeth

Lunsford Lane

L.S. Thompson

Slavery in the United States lasted more than two centuries. The adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in December 1865 abolished slavery after the American Civil War. The first slaves were forcibly removed from Africa by British slave traders beginning in the early 1600s. Redoshi, later renamed Sally Smith, was the last surviving female slave brought to the U.S. from Africa. A Benoise war captive, she was illegally transported to the US (importing slaves having been outlawed 50 years prior). The last surviving male slave, Oluale Kossula (aka Cudjo Lewis), had been transported on the sale ship and was most likely part of the Yoruba people in Benin. The quality of a slave’s life depended completely on their master’s will. It was considered normal, for example, for masters to rape their slaves, who were considered their property. Slaves who escaped were branded, killed, or punished severely in other ways. Solomon Northup Twelve Years a Slave Booker T. Washington Up From Slavery Frederick Douglass From Slavery to Freedom Olaudah Equiano The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Harriet Ann Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Mary Prince The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave Charles Ball Fifty Years in Chains Or, the Life of an American Slave Thomas H. Jones Experience and Personal Narrative of Uncle Tom Jones; Who Was for Forty Years a Slave Phillis Wheatley Religious and Moral Poems William H. Robinson From Log Cabin to the Pulpit, or, Fifteen Years in Slavery Louis Hughes Thirty Years A Slave Elizabeth Keckley Behind the Scenes Josiah Henson The Life of Josiah Henson Old Elizabeth Memoir of Old Elizabeth, A Coloured Woman Annie L. Burton Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days Lucy A. Delaney From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom Lunsford Lane The Narrative of Lunsford Lane, Formerly of Raleigh, N.C. L. S. Thompson The Story of Mattie J. Jackson

Twelve Years a Slave, Up From Slavery, From Slavery to Freedom and others

Slave Narratives Mega Collection. 18 of the Most Moving & Telling Memoirs. Illustrated

The extraordinary writings of Phillis Wheatley, a slave girl turned published poet In 1761, a young girl arrived in Boston on a slave ship, sold to the Wheatley family, and given the name Phillis Wheatley. Struck by Phillis' extraordinary precociousness, the Wheatleys provided her with an education that was unusual for a woman of the time and astonishing for a slave. After studying English and classical literature, geography, the Bible, and Latin, Phillis published her first poem in 1767 at the age of 14, winning much public attention and considerable fame. When Boston publishers who doubted its authenticity rejected an initial collection of her poetry, Wheatley sailed to London in 1773 and found a publisher there for Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. This volume collects both Wheatley's letters and her poetry: hymns, elegies, translations, philosophical poems, tales, and epyllions--including a poignant plea to the Earl of Dartmouth urging freedom for America and comparing the country's condition to her own. With her contemplative elegies and her use of the poetic imagination to escape an unsatisfactory world, Wheatley anticipated the Romantic Movement of the following century. The appendices to this edition include poems of Wheatley's contemporary African-American poets: Lucy Terry, Jupiter Harmon, and Francis Williams. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was the first book of poetry ever published by an African-American author. Phillis Wheatley’s deep familiarity with Latin literature and Christianity, combined with her African ancestry, provided her with a unique and inimitable view of poetry. She was kidnapped and brought over to America on a ship called The Phillis after which she was named. Her interest in poetry and literature was recognized by the Wheatley family who, though keeping her enslaved, provided her with classic works of literature by authors such as Virgil, Homer, Terence, and Pope, all of whom had a significant influence on her work. She received praise from many of her contemporaries including George Washington, John Hancock, and Voltaire. Shortly after publishing her collection of poetry she was emancipated by the Wheatley family. Even so, her life ended in poverty and obscurity. Though her influence on poetry and African-American literature is indisputable, more modern critics of her work point to the lack of censure of slavery and the absence of discussion about the lives of black people in the United States as an example of the Uncle Tom syndrome. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

Brett Rutherford

Samuel Croxall

THE STORY OF NIOBE. Adaptations from Ovid's Metamorphoses, by Brett Rutherford, Phillis Wheatley, and Samuel Croxall. Edited and annotated by Brett Rutherford. This episode from Roman poet Ovid presents a boastful and narcissistic ruler, fourteen murders, a royal suicide, and a petrifcation, a tale that might be ripped from newspaper headlines except that the players are a Titan, a Queen of Thebes, Apollo and Artemis armed with fatal arrows, and a field littered with corpses as a grieving mother turns to stone.Brett Rutherford's new adaptation of Ovid's gruesome mythological tale is followed by two famous earlier versions: one by the 20-year-old Boston slave poet Phillis Wheatley in 1773, and other by British poet Samuel Croxall from the famous multi-translator English edition of Metamorphoses from 1717.Two important essays by Brett Rutherford round out this volume: "Niobe's Tears: The Classical Poetry of Phillis Wheatley" studies how Wheatley constructed her mini-epic from Ovid, using both the Latin poet's work, but also taking cues from the famous 1760 painting by Richard Wilson, The Destruction of the Children of Niobe. It is a rounding defense of Wheatley's place as a poet in the classical tradition. Wheatley's book found a British patron and was published in London in 1773, making it the first poetry book by an African-American woman.A second essay, "The Myth of Niobe and the Boston Massacre" presents startling evidence that Paul Revere's famous 1770 engraving of The Boston Massacre incorporates references to the Niobe myth and even copies visual elements from the Wilson painting. The illustrated text presents the three different known Niobe paintings by Wilson, and engravings made from them (the principal means of copying paintings in the era before photography.)

Adaptations from Ovid's Metamorphoses

The Story of Niobe

Phillis Wheatley

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