"Destined to become the first published woman of African descent, Phillis Wheatley was born around 1753. She was taken by the slave ship Phillis to Boston in 1761 and bought by John and Susanna Wheatley. The Wheatleys provided her with an education that was unusual for a woman of the time and astonishing for a slave. Phillis published her first poem in 1767, around the age of fourteen, and won much public attention and considerable international fame before she was twenty years old."--BOOK JACKET.