Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, credited to Phillis Wheatley, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley. Read by Elizabeth Klett. Phillis Wheatley was the first African-American to publish a book of poetry in 1773. Born in West Africa, she was sold into slavery at age seven, and bought by a wealthy Massachusetts family who taught her to read and write. Her extraordinary literary gifts led to the publication of her "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral," and to her eventual emancipation by her owners. Although some of the poems demonstrate an apparent acceptance of the racist values of the white slave-owning classes (which viewed Africans as savage), Wheatley's considerable talents simultaneously contradicted these stereotypes. ( Summary by Elizabeth Klett )

Recording facts

• Recording title: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
• Author credits: Phillis Wheatley
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 6
• Listed recording duration: 1:52:07

Catalogue topics

• audio
• wheatley
• poetry
• african-american
• slavery

Track guide

1. 1 - Preface/To the Reader — 4:55
2. 2 - Poems 1-10 — 20:41
3. 3 - Poems 11-14 — 25:05
4. 4 - Poems 15-22 — 17:13
5. 5 - Poems 23-33 — 34:10
6. 6 - Poems 34-38 — 10:03

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.