Editing Phillis Wheatley (section)

==Later life==
In 1773, at the age of 20, Phillis accompanied Nathaniel Wheatley to London in part for her health (she suffered from chronic asthma),<ref name="Phillis Wheatley"/> but primarily because Susanna believed Phillis would have a better chance of publishing her book of poems there than in the colonies.<ref>{{cite book|title=Portraits of American Women: From Settlement to the Present|url=https://archive.org/details/portraitsofameri00gjba_0|url-access=registration|year=1998|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/portraitsofameri00gjba_0/page/106 106]|first=Charles |last=Scruggs|chapter=Phillis Wheatley|isbn=978-0-19-512048-6|editor-first=G. J. |editor-last=Barker-Benfield}}</ref> Phillis had an audience with [[Frederick Bull (Lord Mayor of London)|Frederick Bull]], who was the [[Lord Mayor of London]], and other prominent members of British society. (An audience with King [[George III]] was arranged, but Phillis had returned to Boston before it could take place.) [[Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon]], became interested in the talented young African woman and subsidized the publication of Wheatley's volume of poems, which appeared in London in the summer of 1773. As Hastings was ill, the two never met.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gVl_Huh7FbMC |title=Love of Freedom: Black Women in Colonial and Revolutionary New England |year=2010|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York |first1=Catherine |last1=Adams |first2=Elizabeth H. |last2=Pleck |isbn=978-0-19-538908-1}}</ref>{{page needed|date=August 2020}}

After Phillis's book was published, by November 1773, the Wheatleys [[manumission|manumitted]] Phillis. Susanna Wheatley died in the spring of 1774, and John in 1778. Shortly after, Phillis met and married John Peters, an impoverished [[free people of color|free black]] grocer. They lived in poor conditions and two of their babies died.<ref>{{cite book|title=A Shining Thread of Hope|year=2009|publisher=Random House|location=New York|page=26 |first1=Darlene Clark |last1=Hine |first2=Kathleen |last2=Thompson|author-link=Darlene Clark Hine|author2-link=Kathleen Thompson |isbn=978-0-7679-0110-9}}</ref>

John was improvident and was imprisoned for debt in 1784. With a sickly infant son to provide for, Phillis became a [[scullery maid]] at a boarding house, doing work she had never done before; she developed [[pneumonia]]<ref name="wheatley.org">{{Cite web |title=Later Life and Death |url=http://www.phillis-wheatley.org/later-life-death/ |access-date=2023-09-21 |website=www.phillis-wheatley.org}}</ref> and died on December 5, 1784, at the age of 31,<ref>{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers, Volume 1|page=611|chapter=Phillis Wheatley|editor=Page|year=2007 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0-313-34123-6}}</ref> after giving birth to a daughter, who died the same day as her.<ref name="wheatley.org"/>

===Other writings===
Wheatley wrote a letter to Reverend [[Samson Occom]], commending him on his ideas and beliefs stating that enslaved people should be given their natural-born rights in America.<ref>See Saundra O'Neale, "Challenge to Wheatley's Critics: 'There Was no Other Game in Town,' ''Journal of Negro Education'', vol. 54, 500, 503 (1985).</ref> Wheatley also exchanged letters with the British philanthropist [[John Thornton (philanthropist)|John Thornton]], who discussed Wheatley and her poetry in correspondence with [[John Newton]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Bilbro|first1=Jeffrey|title=Who are lost and how they're found: redemption and theodicy in Wheatley, Newton, and Cowper|journal=[[Early American Literature]]|date=Fall 2012|volume=47|issue=3|pages=570–575|doi=10.1353/eal.2012.0054|s2cid=162875678}}</ref> Through her letter writing, Wheatley was able to express her thoughts, comments and concerns to others.<ref>{{cite book|last1=White|title=Freedom On My Mind|date=2015|pages=146–147}}{{ISBN?}}</ref>

In 1775, she sent a copy of a poem entitled "To His Excellency, George Washington" to the then-military general. The following year, Washington invited Wheatley to visit him at his headquarters in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Grizzard|first=Frank E. |author-link=Frank E. Grizzard Jr. |title=George Washington: A Biographical Companion|year=2002|publisher=ABC-CLIO|location=Greenwood, CT|page=349}}{{ISBN?}}</ref> [[Thomas Paine]] republished the poem in ''[[The Pennsylvania Gazette]]'' in April 1776.<ref>{{cite book|title=Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century|year=2013|publisher=University of Kentucky Press|location=Louisville|page=70|editor-first=Vincent |editor-last=Carretta |isbn=978-0-8131-4408-5}}</ref>

In 1779, Wheatley issued a proposal for a second volume of poems but was unable to publish it because she had lost her patrons after her emancipation; publication of books was often based on gaining subscriptions for guaranteed sales beforehand. The [[American Revolutionary War]] (1775–1783) was also a factor. However, some of her poems that were to be included in the second volume were later published in pamphlets and newspapers.<ref>{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers, Volume 1|year=2007|publisher=Greenwood Press|location=Westport, CT|page=610|chapter=Phillis Wheatley |editor-first=Yolanda Williams |editor-last=Page |isbn=978-0-313-34123-6}}</ref>