In 1903, 325 copies of In the Seven Woods were produced and issued by the Dun Emer Press- founded by Elizabeth Yeats.  Joined by her sister Susan Mary Yeats, the two women hoped to run an independent press that would contribute to the growing Irish Arts & Crafts movement. Unlike many of their peers, the Yeats sisters published contemporary texts- a practice far less common than the republication of classic works.

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The distribution of burgeoning Irish creators allowed the Dun Emer, later the Cuala Press to become an outlet for Irish nationalist works during the early twentieth century. The Dun Emer Press was named in honor of Emer, wife of the Irish folk hero Cuchulainn. In his retrospective entitled "Fifty Years of the Cuala Press" in the Colby Quarterly, Ernest C. Marriner writes:

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The one subject of all the Cuala books is Ireland. All but a very few of them deal with Ireland directly-the myths and legends of ancient Gaelic lore, the poetry of old Irish bards and young Irish poets, the plays of the dramatists of the Irish Renaissance, and essays historical, critical, philosophical, bearing on the Irish theme. The spirit of Irish nationalism pervades every page. Every letter of type was set up for the glory of Ireland.

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The Dun Emer Press and the women behind it were a vital part of the Irish Arts & Crafts movement. The hand-bound 1903 publication of In the Seven Woods is emblematic of the Yeats sisters' commitment to Ireland and craft in publication. 

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Citation

Ernest, Marriner. Colby Library Quarterly, series 3, no.11, August 1953, p.171-183