With a lengthy presentation inscription from the author to the British poet, publisher and academic Jon Stallworthy (1935-2014) and his wife Jill in black ink to the title page: ‘for Jon and Jill with love and admiration for your ways of seeing things, in the garden … and the verse. Seamus June 1991’. With a few of Stallworthy’s characteristic neat pencilled annotations.
With a long two page letter loosely inserted from Heaney to Stallworthy dated ‘19 October 1995’ referencing, inter alia, Heaney having been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature: “It was a great joy to have congratulations from Jill and you, and now in the mail the “meditation” and “the lecture”. I desperately need time for the former and can hardly muster a thought for the latter, but the huge support implied by such a gift fortifies me to keep trying to make a go of it.”
Stallworthy and Heaney, who initially met as students of Yeats, were close friends, with Stallworthy describing him as ‘prince of men and poets’ [from his memoir by Peter France, published online by the British Academy].
Jacket edge worn with fading to spine panel, otherwise a very good copy.
