BEOWULF: A NEW VERSE TRANSLATION

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Limited edition. Original cream boards, quarter-bound in red cloth, the spine lettered in gilt to a gilt-framed black label. Housed in the original stiff green card slipcase with upper and lower edges in red cloth. Dark green endpapers. Frontispiece colour reproduction of the opening of the only surviving manuscript of the original Anglo-Saxon poem, now held at the British Library. A fine copy, the binding square and tight, the contents bright and clean throughout, in the equally fine slipcase. A lovely, sharp copy.

Issued in a limited edition of 300 copies, this example is numbered 122 (25 copies numbered I-XXV were reserved for the author) and is signed by Seamus Heaney in black ink on the limitation page. Dedicated to the memory of his friend, Ted Hughes, Heaney's line-by-line translation from the original Anglo-Saxon of this great Northern epic and foundational work of English and European literature was winner of the 1999 Whitbread Poetry Prize. (Brandes & Durkan A72b).