HEANEY, Seamus. Beowulf. A New Verse Translation. Uncorrected Proof Copy.

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. Octavo. pp. [vi], 208. Publisher’s plain textured wrappers printed in black. Spine lettered vertically. Rear cover with printed label: “UNCORRECTED PROOF / NOT FOR SALE … Tentative publication date: February 2000 … Tentative price: $25.00.” A fine copy.

This advance Uncorrected Proof precedes the first American edition of Seamus Heaney’s celebrated bilingual translation of Beowulf, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and brought renewed modern attention to the Anglo-Saxon epic. Heaney’s rendering—commissioned for the Norton Anthology but issued separately by FSG—was praised for its muscular, idiomatic blend of Old English cadence and contemporary voice.

The proof was printed in limited numbers for advance reviewers and internal circulation prior to publication. Examples are now scarce, particularly in this fine state.

Provenance: From a private Irish collection.

References: Brandes & Durkan A76(a); Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, FSG, 2000.

Note: The trade edition followed in May 2000, in both hardback and paperback, with the bilingual text on facing pages.

[L3 8E]