PREOCCUPATIONS: Selected Prose 1968-1978.

First edition, first printing. Original blue cloth with gilt titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. A very good copy, the binding square and firm, the extremities very lightly rubbed and bumped. The contents, with a previous owner's neat name to the front free endpaper, are otherwise clean and bright. Complete with the rubbed, nicked and marked original dustwrapper that has a few short closed tears at the edges and has been clipped and repriced with a label. The rear spine fold is fragile and split at the ends but still holding.

Heaney's first collection of prose writings, including autobiographical pieces, essays and lectures (mainly concerning Irish and English poets, including the great essay, 'Englands of the Mind'), radio talks and reviews. "The difference between craft and technique, the importance of the speaking voice, sense of place, origins, lines of communication with the past, are among Mr Heaney's persistent preoccupations: and what he has to say about them is of the greatest value and appositeness. I can't think of any contemporary critic who has written so illuminatingly about Wordsworth; or on Kavanagh [...] or, come to that, on three leading English poets of our time, Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill, and Philip Larkin." (from the review by David Wright, in the 'Times Educational Supplement').