Nobel Prize winner Heaney breaks charity shop record

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Two pamphlets, including the first published work by Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney, have broken a Nottingham charity shop's sale record.

The works by Heaney and fellow Irish poet Michael Longley were sold at auction for £3,500.

Staff at the Oxfam music and book shop on Market Street said they did not know who handed the pamphlets in but were "delighted" and "very grateful".

Prior to this the biggest amount raised from donations was £1,500 for a bible.

Eleven Poems [1965] by Seamus Heaney and Ten Poems [1965] by Michael Longley were initially valued between £300 and £500.

Shop volunteer Dawn Nichol said: "Like most of our donations they just came through our door."

She added: "Bonhams said you might be lucky, you might not.

"Obviously someone really wanted them so we made a lot more."

The pamphlets were festivals publications used by new poets to get their work more widely read.

Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1995 "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth which exalt everyday miracles and the living past", in the words of the Nobel citation.

More recently he was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11484707" title="BBC News: Seamus Heaney wins £10,000 Forward Prize" >named winner of the 2010 Forward Prize</a>.

Michael Longley is also widely recognised as one of the leading contemporary poets of his generation and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10299836" title="BBC News: Queen honours Longley and McCoy in Birthday Awards list" >received a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2010</a>.