Seamus Heaney — The Cure at Troy

London, Faber and Faber, 1990 . First edition. Paperback. An exceptional signed first trade edition of Seamus Heaney's verse adaptation of Sophocles' play Philoctetes, set in the final days of the Trojan war. The first trade edition of this work, first impression. Flat signed by Heaney to the title page. Dedicated in memory of poet and translator Robert Fitzgerald, the story takes place in the closing days of the Trojan War when the protagonist Philoctetes has been abandoned on an island with a wound that will not heal. A famous passage from the poem - concluding 'an hope and history rhyme' - was quoted by Bill Clinton in his remarks to the community in Derry in 1995 during the Northern Ireland Peace Process. In the publisher's original paper wraps. Externally, excellent, but with pencil marks to fore edge of text block. Internally, firmly bound. Pages clean and bright. Inscription to title page. Near Fine . Ill.: None. Near Fine .