The Palm House
Amelia Stein

A monograph of duotone photographs, taken in the Palm House at the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin, beautifully illustrate this building as it was prior to its restoration. The photographs capture the cluttered green jungle, worn by time and held high in affection by the enchanted visitors who stepped inside its lofty paradise. By bringing the reader around the house as it was, drawing the eye to detail upwards, along its unique metal walkway and into the smaller treasure, the orchid house; to look at the intricate glass panels, metal structure, the wooden frames with their own unique patina of the passage of time, The Palm House tells its story visually. Meanwhile, in an accompanying text, Brendan Sayers relates how a visitor felt on entering and exploring this exotic world, the history and the origin of the planting, the unique pot and tub culture, and the importance of the collection.

Amelia Stein lives and works in Dublin, Ireland, where she was born in 1958, establishing herself over 30 years as a singularly exacting photographer whose work is characterized by meticulous attention to detail in tandem with the attributes of fine black and white photography. As a performing arts photographer, Stein has worked in Theatre and Opera in Ireland 1979-2000. Her signature black and white photography featured widely in the Music Industry. Elected a member of the RHA in 2004, Aosdána in 2006.

The Lilliput Press is one of Ireland’s smallest and most prestigious publishing houses. They publish a wide variety of Irish interest books and are proud to represent authors such as James Joyce, John Moriarty, J.P. Donleavy and many others. Lilliput specialize in biography, historical non-fiction and memoir, but are also one of the leading fiction publishers in Ireland and are known for discovering exciting new talents such as Donal Ryan, Rob Doyle and Elske Rahill. They have recovered several titles which were groundbreaking at the time of their first publication, most recently the powerful Fathers Come First by Rosita Sweetman.

The Lilliput Press was founded in 1984 by Antony Farrell in County Westmeath. Jonathan Swift spent his summers in a house nearby, and derived the name Lilliput from a local townland. The office was moved to its present locale in Arbour Hill, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7, in 1989. More than 600 titles have appeared under its imprint; these encompass art, music (both traditional and popular Irish music) architecture, autobiography and memoir, biography and history, ecology and environmentalism, essays and literary criticism, philosophy, current affairs and popular culture, fiction, drama and poetry, all broadly focused on Irish themes. They are particularly focused on publishing high quality books about Irish history, and have covered a wide range of topics in this area alone.