Seamus Heaney, Bernard O’Donoghue & Rosie Lavan
The definitive edition of Seamus Heaney’s poetry, with illuminating critical notes, including uncollected poems and a selection of previously unseen material
This is the long-awaited, definitive edition of Seamus Heaney’s poetry. It encompasses all the poems Heaney published in his lifetime as well as the small number that appeared after his death: twelve single volumes, from Death of a Naturalist (1966) to Human Chain (2010), and those poems published in pamphlets, journals and magazines or with limited circulation. In addition, the book includes a
small selection of previously unseen material. We find a body of work that, in its entirety, resounds with the ‘lyrical beauty and
ethical depth’ cited by the Nobel committee: poems ‘which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.’

Critical introductions to each collection and notes that illuminate the composition and histories of the poems make this is the essential volume for admirers of the work.

‘More than any other poet since Wordsworth he can make us understand that the outside world is not outside, but what we are made of.’ John Carey

‘Heaney’s voice, by turns mythological and journalistic, rural and sophisticated, reminiscent and impatient, stern and yielding, curt and expansive, is one of a suppleness almost equal to consciousness itself.’ Helen Vendler

‘His is “closeup” poetry – close up to thought, to the world, to the emotions. Few writers at work today, in verse or fiction, can give the sense of rich, fecund, lived life that Heaney does.’ John Banville

Seamus Heaney was born in County Derry in Northern Ireland in 1939. Death of a Naturalist, his first collection, appeared in 1966, and was followed by poetry, criticism and translations which established him as the leading poet of his generation. He died in 2013.
Bernard O’Donoghue is an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College. His seventh collection of poetry, The Anchorage, was published in 2025.
Rosie Lavan is Associate Professor in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin. She is author of Seamus Heaney and Society (2020).