An Elegiac Poem on the death of George Whitefield - photo 1
An Elegiac Poem on the death of George Whitefield - photo 2

An Elegiac Poem on the death of George Whitefield

Lot 2
15.06.2023 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Starting price
$ 10 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
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ID 967551
Lot 2 | An Elegiac Poem on the death of George Whitefield
Estimate value
$ 10 000 – 12 000
An Elegiac Poem on the death of George Whitefield

Phillis Wheatley Peters, 1771

WHEATLEY PETERS, Phillis (c.1753-1784) and Ebenezer PEMBERTON (1705-1777). Heaven the Residence of the Saints. A Sermon Occasioned by the sudden and much lamented Death of the Rev. George Whitefield… to which is added An Elegiac Poem on his Death, by Phillis, a Negro Girl. London: for E. and C. Dilley, 1771.



Phillis Wheatley Peters's first published poem, early English edition. Phillis composed the present work at the age of 17 to commemorate the death of the Evangelical preacher George Whitefield, who had traveled in North America during the Great Awakening and was the chaplain of Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon. Hastings would later be inspired by this poem to become Phillis's patron, financing her first book of poetry (see preceding lot).



The printing history of this text is complex; her early bibliographer Heartman writes that it "has been reprinted quite a bit, oftener perhaps than we know of." It was certainly issued numerous times in Boston in 1770, the year of Whitefield's death, including as a broadside—but some of the recorded editions may be bibliographic ghosts, and many extant copies exist as singletons and are in poor condition with missing imprints. The first edition of Pemberton's sermon for Whitefield, printed in Boston, did not contain Wheatley Peters's poem; it was added for this London edition. Sabin 59606; ESTC T79049; Heartman VIII.



Octavo (204 x 138mm). 31 pp., 1 p. advert on recto of final page (title remargined at gutter, a bit of dustsoiling). 19th-century plum quarter morocco with marbled boards (worn at extremities). Provenance: William Sumner Appleton, 1840-1903 (bookplate).

Artist:Phillis Wheatley (1753 - 1784)
Auction house category:Printed books
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15.06.2023
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