"Excellent analysis of Wheatley's poetry, presenting new, dimensional insights."–Regina Jennings,
Franklin and Marshall College"Terrific."–Ronna C. Johnson,
Tufts University"The volume is a generous gift of exemplary and painstaking scholarship. Those who have
never before encountered Shields' multiform Phillis will meet a friend in the poet and in this critic-bard."–Linda Susan Beard,
Michigan State University"The notes and other supporting materials (criticism and variant poems and letters) are a teacher's dream. I could not imagine my early African-American Writers course without this edition. It is reasonably priced yet very expensive, even elaborate, in its conception."–William W. Cook,
Dartmouth CollegePraise for the series: "A major contribution to American literary history....Now, through this collection, the thoughts, perspectives, imagination, and voices of nineteenth-century Afro-American women are accessible to the general public."–
Black American Literature Forum"In an editorial feat of epic proportions, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has rescued the vast writings of nineteenth-century black women from oblivion....He has reinstated black literary ancestresses to their positions of prominence....Groundbreaking."–Marcellus Blount,
The Village Voice Literary Supplement"What an astonishing gift...this collection is!...To have all of these black women writers' works together in one collection seems almost a fabulous dream."–Alice Walker
"What an astonishing gift...this collection is!"–Alice Walker
"The collaboration among The Schomburg Center, Oxford University Press, and these exceptional scholars is an extraordinary event...but the collection is a spectacular achievement."–Toni Morrison