ELEVEN POEMS

Belfast: Festival Publications, Queen's University, 1965. First edition, SIGNED BY SEAMUS HEANEY, the "second issue" with the sun illustration on the upper cover being ten-pointed and printed in near-black purple. 8vo, in the publisher's original printed cream paper wrappers, staple bound as issued, now handsomely presented in a fine fold-over box enlarged in thickness for greater shelf-presence and morocco backed with raised bands and gilt tooling. 16. A perfect copy, flawless, beautifully preserved and presented. A SIGNED COPY OF THE POET'S FIRST BOOK, EXTREMELY SCARCE IN ANY STATE THIS IS A FLAWLESS AND PERFECT COPY. There were only three issues of the work, and all were in very small print runs. The first has a nine pointed star printed in light purple on the white wrapper, the second is nearly identical but the star is ten pointed and printed in a much darker purple that is essentially black, the final issue was quite different, being wrapped in green paper with an entirely different design printed on them.
The eleven poems included within include 'Death of a Naturalist', which would several months later be the title-poem for Heaney's first book published by Faber and Faber. The others are: 'Personal Helicon'; 'Mid-Term Break'; 'Follower'; 'The Diviner'; 'Peter Street at Bankside'; 'Waterfall'; 'Docker'; 'For the Commander of "the Eliza"'; 'Lovers of Aran'; and 'Scaffolding'. Ten of these poems would also appear in the later production by Faber and Faber.