North. by HEANEY, Seamus - 1975

London: Faber and Faber Ltd,, 1975. Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt. With dust jacket. Ownership inscription "Thwaite" to front free endpaper. Cloth and jacket both somewhat mottled, ends and corners lightly rubbed, foxing to endpapers and blanks, small tears or chips to jacket ends at front joint and the upper fore-corner, a good copy. First edition, first impression, signed by Heaney on the title page, scarce cloth issue. This copy has the ownership inscription of Anthony Thwaite (b. 1930), an important English poet and editor of "the Movement", and the literary executor of Philip Larkin. Thwaite had favourably reviewed Heaney's 1969 collection Door into the Dark in the New Statesman, welcoming him into what he termed "the Tribe of Ted [Hughes]". His praise ("It's impossible to fault the clean language, sensuous delight, concise and modest statements; and I'm sure it's all completely authentic") was not unqualified ("But I'm equally sure that the appeal of Heaney's work is of an exotic sort, to people who can't tell wheat from barley or a gudgeon from a pike"), making this a very interesting poetic association copy of the Nobel laureate's key collection.