The Letters of Seamus Heaney

Book Synopsis

The letters provide us with an intimate, multilayered understanding of this extraordinary poet's life and mind.

Every now and again I need to get down here, to get into the Diogenes tub, as it were, or the Colmcille beehive hut, or the Mossbawn scullery. At any rate, a hedge surrounds me, the blackbird calls, the soul settles for an hour or two.

In this astute selection from Seamus Heaney's vast correspondence, we are given direct access to the life and poetic development of a literary titan, from his early days in Belfast, through his controversial decision to settle in the Republic, to the gradual broadening of horizons that culminated in the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature and the years of international eminence that kept him heroically busy until his death.

Christopher Reid draws from both public and private archives to reveal this remarkable story in the poet's own words. Generous, funny, exuberant, confiding, irreverent, empathetic, and deeply thoughtful, The Letters of Seamus Heaney encompasses decades-long relationships with friends and colleagues, as well as an unstinted responsiveness to passing acquaintances.

Heaney's mastery of language is as evident here as it is in any of his writings; listening to his voice we find ourselves in the same room as a man whose presence enriched the world and whose legacy deepens our sense of what truly matters.

Review Quotes

"An epistolary cornucopia. The Letters of Seamus Heaney contains an abundance of insight and illumination, literary gossip and appraisal, playfulness and cogency, all bound up with a steadfast attention to the feelings and expectations of each correspondent. " --Patricia Craig, TLS

"The portrait of Heaney that emerges in The Letters of Seamus Heaney, edited diligently and sympathetically by Christopher Reid, is of a man always tussling between duty and freedom." --Declan Ryan, Poetry Foundation

"The 700-plus pages of The Letters of Seamus Heaney, beautifully edited by Christopher Reid, contain numerous fascinating themes and subplots. . . We see the poet, for example, first getting his hands on a copy of P. V. Glob's The Bog People, the book whose account of exhumed Iron Age bodies in Denmark would trigger "The Tollund Man" and, in time, half of the poems in North." --James Parker, The Atlantic

About the Author

Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) was born in Northern Ireland. Death of a Naturalist, his first collection of poems, appeared in 1966 and was followed by numerous volumes of poetry, plays, criticism, and translation, establishing him as one of the leading English-language poets of his generation. In 1995, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His translation of Virgil's Aeneid Book VI was published posthumously in 2016 to great critical acclaim.

Christopher Reid is the author of many books of poetry, including A Scattering (winner of the Costa Book Award), The Curiosities, and The Late Sun. He also edited Letters of Ted Hughes. He lives in London.