PAPERBACK ISBN: 0-88258-218-6

 $24.95

232 pages; 6 x 9 inches

Interpretative Essays on the Life and Poetry of Phillis Wheatley and George Moses Horton

by M.A. Richmond

Bid the Vassal Soar: Interpretive Essays on the Life and Poetry of Phillis Wheatley and George Moses Horton, by M. A. Richmond, is a comparative study of the lives and works of two African American poets who wrote within the confines of the “peculiar institution” of slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries, respectively.  Wheatley was the slave of upper-class, Puritan Bostonians; Horton, a field hand in rugged North Carolina during the harsh, pre-Civil War years. This book’s uniqueness lies in its author’s search for the two poets’ identities within the recesses of their poems and letters, a vantage point that renders a rich personification of their lives. “Richmond’s style,” literary critic Houston A. Baker, Jr., noted upon first publication of Bid the Vassal Soar, “is generally flawless, and her speculation is persuasive…[yielding] a subtle blend of irony, light nationalism, firm conviction, and solid research.”

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