Download or read book Phillis Wheatley and the Romantics written by John C. Shields and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2010-08-19 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book very conclusively debunks the over two-hundred-year-old conventional wisdom that Wheatley owes her poetic sensibilities to Alexander Pope. ... It will help rejuvenate the study of Wheatley and will be an exciting contribution to scholarly discourse on Wheatley's poetry."--Cedrick May, author of Evangelism and Resistance in the Black Atlantic, 1760-1835. Phillis Wheatley was the first African American to publish a book. Born in Gambia in 1753, she came to America aboard a slave ship, the Phillis. From an early age, Wheatley exhibited a profound gift for verse, publishing her first.