One time she was invited to dinner in the home of one of Mr. Wheatley's relations. The servants said that it was the first time they ever carried food to a woman with skin their color. But Phillis usually sat at a table separate from the white people at a dinner party.
RAY FREEMAN: Phillis Wheatley became famous in Europe as well as in America. She travelled to London in seventeen seventy-three and gave poetry readings there. She was twenty years old. The writings of the young slave from Africa surprised everyone.
During her visit in London, she was to have been presented to King George the third. But she received urgent news from America. Mr. Wheatley was very sick and had asked that Phillis return to Boston. Phillis returned home quickly.
That meant she missed the publication in London of her book poems on various subjects, religious and moral. It contained thirty-eight of her poems. It was the first published book written by a black person in America. And it was only the second book written by an American woman.
Newspapers in London highly praised her poems. Her book sold very well there and later in America.
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Phillis Wheatley had one more brief period of being famous. In seventeen seventy-five, she wrote a poem about George Washington. He had become commander of the Colonial forces in the American revolution. The poem was called "His Excellency General Washington." It called Washington "first in peace and honors." She sent her poem to him.
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