North

This edition of Seamus Heaney's seminal fourth collection North, reproduced in its elegant first setting and in its original jacket, marks fifty years since first publication in 1975.

By conjuring aspects of a shared Northern European experience - its peculiar landscapes and weathers, its sea-faring incursions, the vernaculars of its buried and living peoples - Heaney found a way of articulating a vision of Ireland in which the disruptions and violences of the Troubles could be reflected too.

About the Author

Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) was born in County Derry in Northern Ireland. Death of a Naturalist, his first collection of poems, appeared in 1966, and was followed by poetry, criticism and translations which established him as the leading poet of his generation. In 1995 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and twice won the Whitbread Book of the Year, for The Spirit Level (1996) and Beowulf (1999). Stepping Stones, a book of interviews conducted by Dennis O'Driscoll, appeared in 2008; Human Chain, his last volume of poems, was awarded the 2010 Forward Prize for Best Collection. His translation of Virgil's Aeneid Book VI was published posthumously in 2016 to critical acclaim, followed in 2018 by 100 Poems, a selection of poems from his entire career, chosen by his family.