Hidden Literacies

Phillis’ Emergence from Behind the Letters

But despite this, the letter actually has everything to do with Wheatley.  Though Susanna does not mention it, Occom likely would have known Wheatley was serving as an amanuensis for this letter because, as a recipient of letters from both Susanna and Phillis, he could have recognized Phillis’s handwriting; he also probably would have surmised that Wheatley was acting as an amanuensis because Susanna was ill.  In addition, this letter quotes another letter that addresses the publication of Wheatley’s Poems. The second, quoted letter is to Susanna from Captain Robert Calef, whom the Wheatleys employed to sail their merchant ship, the London Packet.  Also, on the Wheatleys’ behalf, Calef negotiated with London printer Archibald Bell to publish Phillis’s work and to solicit the Countess of Huntingdon, a prominent sponsor of both religious causes and transatlantic Black writers, to allow the book to be dedicated to her. The letter to Occom notes that “The following is an Extract from Capt Calef’s Letter dated Jany 5,” and then quotes it directly—suggesting that either Susanna read Calef’s letter aloud to Phillis or that Phillis copied Calef’s letter directly into Susanna’s letter to Occom.  The quotation from Calef’s letter reads:

Mr. Bell (the printer) acquaints me that about 5 weeks ago he waited upon the Countess of Huntingdon with the Poems, who was greatly pleas’d with them, and pray’d him to Read them, and often would break in upon him and say, “is not this, or that, very fine? do read another.” and then expres’d herself she found her heart to knit with her and Quesiond him much, whether she was Real with out a deception? He then Convinc’d her by bringing my name [Calef] in question. She is expected in Town in a short time when we [Calef and Bell] are both to wait upon her. I had like to forgot to mention to you She is fond of having the Book Dedicated to her; but one thing she desir’d which she said she hardly tho’t would be denied her, what was to have Phillis’ picture in the frontispiece. So that, if you canwouldget it done it can be Engrav’d here. I do imagine it can be easily done, and think would contribute greatly to the Sale of the Book. I am impatient to hear what the Old Countess says upon the Occasion & shall take the Earliest Oppy of waiting upon her when she comes to Town.

Susanna never mentions Wheatley directly, only replicating Calef’s letter’s pronouns—“she” and “her,” without any named antecedent—and its allusion to “Phillis’ picture.” Susanna likely writes Occom about Wheatley’s poems because they had corresponded about her in the past, because Occom also knew Phillis, and perhaps because Occom had already expressed interest in selling Poems once it was published, as he would indeed eventually do, and this excerpt spoke directly to “the Sale of the Book.”11 (And, as Wheatley scholars know, Wheatley did agree to have her picture drawn, presumably by Scipio Moorhead, an enslaved artist in Boston, and engraved in London, and the image that would become the famous Wheatley frontispiece of Poemsalso graces the Hidden Literacies website.)

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