From an incredibly young age, Phillis Wheatley showed an immense precocity for the written word, and gained international acclaim for her elegy "On the Death of Rev. Mr. George Whitefield. 1770." Many of Wheatley's writings center around religious subjects, and include frequent references to Christianity and to Greek and Roman mythology. Wheatley's letters also reveal her knowledge of Alexander Pope, John Milton, William Shenstone, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Terence, Homer, and James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, whom she acknowledged as her literary predecessor.
After the publication of her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, Wheatley moved to London, and according to her letters was treated as a touring celebrity, meeting Benjamin Franklin, the Earl of Dartmouth, and Granville Sharp, an abolitionist whose judicial activism successfully extended liberty to African slaves in Britain. Wheatley's later poems continue her emphasis on Greek mythology and heroic prose, but frequently mention the unjust kidnapping and enslavement of Africans and insist on equality. Wheatley's poems also proved to be a major catalyst for the abolitionist movement.
Phillis Wheatley continued to publish poems throughout her life, but failed to gain enough support to publish a second volume of poetry and letters. Her work remains a major part of the canon of English-language poetry.
