Seamus Heaney

First edition. 8vo. Pp. xvii, 188. Black cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine; apricot endpapers. Includes chronology, endnotes, bibliography, and index.

Signed by the book's subject, Seamus Heaney, on the verso of the half- title (gallantly leaving the title-page free for Vendler to sign – should the occasion arise – he cautiously explained at the signing). Light toning to textblock edges, else Fine.

A study of the poetry of Seamus Heaney as it evolves from his beginnings in Death of a Naturalist (1966), through to The Spirit Level (1996). Where other books on the Nobel laureate have dwelt chiefly on the biographical, geographical, and political aspects of his writing, this book looks squarely at Heaney's poetry as art. "[A] luminous new study." –Jonathan Allison, The Monitor