Before Printing Was Discovered, a Century Was Equal to a Thousand Years.

Henry David Thoreau

The process of printing and publishing books interests me as a reader as much as it does as an academic. The contexts for the publication of works can be almost fascinating as the context works themselves. The seminar presented on the Dun Emer Press grabbed my attention solely because I had no idea of its existence or its importance. What would become Cuala Press began life as Dun Emer Press as part of the Celtic revival through W.B. Yeats, Elizabeth Yeats and Evelyn Gleeson. The press worked as a platform for women specifically to work, and also published works by Yeats, Lady Gregory and Douglas Hyde. There is much power in the ability to publish one’s works, and as Yeats was almost self-publishing, such as one could at the time, so I am intrigued by the different methods authors used to publish their works before the modern age of print on demand and self-publishing.

While Dun Emer Press worked to provide low-run, high-quality printing of books that would later be published by other presses, notable authors in the previous century would publish novels in periodicals rather than in a book before the work was collected into a hardback like those published by Dun Emer. Much like Yeats had a vested interest in the publication, Charles Dickens owned a literary magazine where he could publish his works and the works of others. All the Year Round played host to Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities and Wilkie Collin’s The Woman in White. The publication of many Holmes stories occurred in the Strand magazine, famously, and it was also the home to some of Christie and Wodehouse’s stories too.

The story of the Dun Emer Press was enlightening and I enjoyed the way the history of the press was presented. There is a great importance in the ease with which publication is available, although at times it feels as if there is too much freedom these days. The internet as a publication tool is an interesting topic, one that I may write about further at another time, as it has allowed for different forms of serialization than the literary magazine granted while also providing the means for authors to publish and profit from their work directly with eBooks available to be provided to the audience in some cases without a third party , and websites can serve as a place to host other material besides the books or articles. I note that popular authors will often include other items, besides books, on their website shops, like clothing or various bits of merchandise related to book series, that make them additional income in much the same way the Dun Emer Press had to look outside of books to keep the press afloat, producing cards and bookplates.