Death of a Naturalist.

HEANEY, Seamus.

Item Number: 2812

London: Faber and Faber, 1966.

First edition of Heaney’s first major published volume. Octavo, original green cloth with titles to the spine in gilt. Signed by the author on the title page, with the added lines from one of his most famous poems Digging, “Between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it.” Seamus Heaney.” Fine in near fine dust jacket with light sunning to the pink portion of the spine. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A sharp example with a nice inscription.

The Death of a Naturalist is the first regularly published book by the Nobel Prize-winning poet. It consists of 34 short poems and is largely concerned with childhood experiences and the formulation of adult identities, family relationships, and rural life. The collection begins with one of Heaney's best-known poems, "Digging", and includes the acclaimed "Death of a Naturalist". It went on to win the Cholmondeley Award, the Gregory Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.