A rare signed 1st edition (1773) of ‘Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral’ (1773), the first book written by an African American. Wheatley’s signature bleeds through on the right hand side. (Note the contemporary ink signature of Henry Pelham at upper right. Pelham accomplished the very first engraving of the Boston Massacre in 1770, and it is also known that Phillis Wheatley penned a poem on that momentous event although an original copy has yet to be discovered).