HEANEY, Seamus.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Hailstones. First edition, signed limited issue, one of 250 cloth-bound copies signed by the poet on the title page and additionally inscribed by him "for Paul and Ulla", and by the printer, Peter Fallon, "from Peter in Loughcrew in January, 1985 - my favourite hosts (yes) and special guests (but where's Ulla?)".The recipients were Heaney's friend Paul Sullivan and his wife, Ulla. Heaney and Sullivan's decades-long friendship, rooted in a shared love of poetry, grew out of their mutual associations with the printer Peter Fallon, who 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. This copy was acquired direct from Sullivan's estate.As well as the title poem, which first appeared in the previous month's LRB, the book includes the first printings of nine poems, eight of which were later collected in The Haw Lantern (1987). There were also 500 unsigned copies bound in wrappers, published simultaneously.

• Printing: first

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