In a major poetry publishing event Faber & Faber have launched what is described as the definitive edition of Seamus Heaney’s poetry. It includes critical notes, a substantial number of uncollected poems and a selection of some poems never before published.

The Poems of Seamus Heaney encompasses all the poems that Heaney published in his lifetime as well as a small number that appeared after his death: 12 single volumes, from Death of a Naturalist (1966) to Human Chain (2010), and poems published in pamphlets, journals and magazines or with limited circulation.

Seamus Heaney was born in County Derry in Northern Ireland, and was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1995. The Nobel committee praised Heaney’s poetry for its “lyrical beauty and ethical depth”, that “exalt everyday miracles and the living past”. He died in 2013.

The Poems of Seamus Heaney contains over 700 poems. Dr Rosie Lavan and Bernard O'Donoghue have worked for almost a decade to put together the collection, which has been edited by Matthew Hollis.