HEANEY, Seamus.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Midnight Verdict. First edition, signed by the author on the title page. The book comprises three verse translations by Heaney, here printed for the first time: "Orpheus and Eurydice", from Book X of Ovid's Metamorphosis; "The Midnight Verdict", from Brian Merriman's Cuirt an Mhean Oiche; and "The Death of Orpheus", from Metamorphosis Book XI.Loosely inserted is a manuscript letter to a previous owner, Paul Sullivan, from Peter Fallon of the Gallery Press, on their letterhead. Paul Sullivan was a friend of Heaney's, their decades-long friendship, rooted in a shared love of poetry, grew out of their mutual associations with the printer Peter Fallon. Fallon introduced Sullivan, a stockbroker in Massachusetts, to contemporary Irish literature in the 1970s. Sullivan quickly became an enthusiastic patron and collector of Heaney's writing. When Heaney lectured at Harvard in the 1980s and 90s, Sullivan and his wife Ulla hosted the poet for dinner twice a week; on his return to Ireland, Heaney invited them to stay with him.

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