Electric Light
By Seamus Heaney
 
First edition, first impression: London: Faber and Faber, 2001. Signed by the author to the title page.
 
Octavo. Original black cloth, the spine lettered in white with mustard endpapers and paste-downs. With the original reddish orange dust jacket, printed in white and metallic grey, designed by Pentagram.
 
A near fine copy. The binding is clean, square and firm, the cloth fresh and unmarked. There is a slight push to the foot of the spine and some faint spotting to the top edge of the text block; otherwise the book is excellent. Internally clean and bright, with no inscriptions or foxing, and with the author’s bold signature neatly placed beneath the printed title.
 
The dust jacket is near fine, showing very slight fading to the spine panel and a minuscule nick to the top corner of the lower panel. Otherwise crisp and well preserved, with no tears or loss, and retaining the original price to the foot of the rear flap.
 
Electric Light is one of Heaney’s most resonant later collections, moving freely across time and geography while returning insistently to questions of memory, language, ancestry, and the sources of poetic knowledge. Published six years after he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995.