DUN EMER PRESS: YEATS, W. B.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

In the Seven Woods: First edition, first impression, one of 325 copies. The volume includes the first appearance of "Adam's Curse" in book form, "The Song of Red Hanrahan", and "On Baile's Strand". Yeats described this as "the first book of mine that it is a pleasure to look at - a pleasure whether open or shut" (Wade, p. 65).The Dun Emer press was named for co-founder Evelyn Gleeson's home in Dundrum, near Dublin. The press, established with Lily and Elizabeth Yeats in late 1902, ran alongside an embroidery and rug making workshop. Eleven titles were released under the Dun Emer imprint, which was renamed the Cuala Press when the Yeats sisters split from Gleeson in 1908. The full Irish linen binding was only used for this, the first title printed at the press, as it proved unwieldy to work. This led to the choice to use the linen-backed blue boards for which the press is now known. The Yeats sisters were parodied by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922) for their designation in the colophon of 1903 as "the year of the big wind": "Five lines of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fishgods of Dundrum. Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind". Joyce was one of the few notable Irish writers of the time not to be published by the press.

• Printing: first

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