Wheatley, the Poet Behind Our Bestseller

Our bestselling candle is named for a poet.

Phillis Wheatley was taken from West Africa as a child, around seven years old, and enslaved in Boston in 1761. Within a few years she had learned to read and write English, then Latin. She began composing poetry as a teenager. In 1773, her collection Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in London, making her the first African American to publish a book of poetry. She was about twenty years old. Booksellers in two countries carried her work, and readers on both sides of the Atlantic knew her name.

She wrote in candlelight. Nearly every writer of her century did. That detail stayed with us.

The scent

The Wheatley candle is bright on purpose. It opens with orange, orange peel, and grapefruit, warms into mango, peach, and red currant, and settles on cedar. Vibrant, precise, and impossible to ignore, which felt right for a poet whose work traveled farther than anyone expected it to.

Two ways to bring it home

The Signature Collection version comes in amber glass. The Heirloom Collection version is poured into our reusable Blue and White Bowl, a vessel meant to be kept, washed, and given a second life on your shelf.

Light it while you read. That is what it is for.

More stories: Candles of Old Town Alexandria and The Blue and White Bowl.