Heaney's first collection
HEANEY, Seamus. Death of a Naturalist. London: Faber and Faber. 1966.
8vo. Original green cloth, backstrip lettered vertically in gilt; together with the original unclipped olive and pink dust wrapper (18s. net); pp. [viii], 9-57, [3]; a very good copy, miniscule hole to p. [vii-viii]; the slightly dirtied dust jacket lightly and evenly sunned along the backstrip, as is common; creased, with some internal tape repairs along the spine and folds; very good.
First edition of Heaney's first collection of poems.
The poet is described on the front flap of the dustjacket as "a young poet who already has an eagerly-appreciative audience in his native Ireland".
The work brings together 34 short poems largely influenced by the poet's childhood and early life growing up in rural Ireland. Beginning with one of his better-known poems, Digging, it also includes the title poem, which details the experiences of a young boy collecting frogspawn from a flax-dam. Another, Mid-Term Break, was based upon the poet's own experiences as he came to terms with the death of his younger brother. He describes in stark and hauntingly beautiful terms: "Snowdrops/ And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him/ For the first time in six weeks. Paler now…"
The collection helped the then 27-year-old Heaney gain recognition on an international scale. It went on to win the Cholmondeley Award, the E.C. Gregory Award, the Somerset Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.
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