The Wheatley Census attempts to locate and describe all extant copies of all editions of Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral and related reprints of Wheatley’s poems under different title through 1909. Phase 1 of the census focuses on extant copies of the first edition of Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral, published in London in September 1773 (ESTC T153734, Sabin 10316). Later phases will focus on subsequent editions and existing data will be updated iteratively.
The Census currently includes 000 copies.
High-quality, color digital facsimiles are available for 000 copies, or 0% of the total. Click on the icon in the list of copies to access the digital facsimile. If you know of any we have missed, please let us know.
Each copy in the Wheatley Census has been given a unique identifier, the WC #, which can be used in references and citations and which will not change. (For this reason, some numbers may appear out of order in copy listings, since individual copies may have changed Location or otherwise moved position since numbers were first assigned.) Copies of the 1773 First Edition have WC #s beginning at 1000. Please cite the Wheatley Census as follows:
Wheatley Census. Ed. Brigitte Fielder and Jonathan Senchyne. Created 2023. Accessed 15 August 2023. <http://www.wheatleycensus.org>. WC n.
The static URL for any copy is https://wheatleycensus.org/wc/n , where n is the WC #.
Currently, 000 copies are attested only by the holdings details library catalogues, but as these details are often erroneous or nonspecific, such copies are listed as unverified (⃠) until they have been confirmed. The other copies, including both those initially deriving from ESTC and not, have been confirmed on site (✓). A list of all unverified copies can be found here.
A list of all libraries currently in the database, along with the number of copies they hold, can be downloaded here. Note that some universities have multiple collection locations associated with them, which will each appear separately in the list.
Copies of Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral that are sold at auction are assumed to have a location of “Private Collection” unless an institutional location is verified through matching identifiers. Copies that are documented and sold through major auction houses are considered verified even if they have not been personally verified by a WC member or volunteer.
This project is modeled on the Shakespeare Census (www.shakespearecensus.org) conducted by Adam Hooks and Zachary Lesser, and principally developed by Scott Enderle (https://github.com/senderle/bookcensus).
Editors
Brigitte Fielder, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Jonathan Senchyne, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Advisory Board
The Wheatley Census was created by Jonathan Senchyne and Brigitte Fielder. We are very grateful to members of the Wheatley Census advisory board for their help in developing and maintaining this bibliographical resource:
Dorothy Berry, National Museum of African American History & Culture
Lauren Gottlieb-Miller, University of Houston
Cassander Smith, University of Alabama
Jesse Erickson, Morgan Library and Museum
Tara Bynum, University of Iowa
Laura Helton, University of Delaware