Princeton University Press

Princeton University Press is a nonprofit scholarly publisher and a department of Princeton University. Founded in 1905, it is one of the oldest and most respected university presses in the world, with a mission to disseminate scholarship of the highest caliber. The press publishes influential works across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, connecting the ideas of leading academics and thinkers to a global community of readers, scholars, and students.

History

The press was established in 1905 by Charles Scribner II, a member of the prominent publishing family, as an extension of the university's commitment to advancing knowledge. Its first published book was a 1906 lecture by the classics professor John H. Westcott on Plato. A significant early milestone was the 1912 publication of the landmark translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy by Charles Eliot Norton, which helped establish its scholarly reputation. Throughout the 20th century, it expanded its list under directors like Datus C. Smith Jr., publishing seminal works during World War II and the Cold War. The press moved to its current purpose-built headquarters on William Street in Princeton, New Jersey in 1911 and has since grown into a global operation with offices in Oxford and Beijing.

Publications and series

The press maintains a diverse catalog of over 3,000 active titles and publishes approximately 250 new books annually. It is renowned for its prestigious academic series, including the Princeton Series in Astrophysics, the Princeton Legacy Library, and the Bollingen Series, which it took over from Pantheon Books in 1967. Other notable series include the Princeton Monographs in Philosophy and the Princeton Studies in International History and Politics. A cornerstone of its output is the multivolume The Papers of Thomas Jefferson project. It also publishes significant works in economics, such as the influential textbook Games and Decisions by R. Duncan Luce and Howard Raiffa, and in mathematics, including the Annals of Mathematics Studies.

Notable authors and works

The press has published works by a vast array of Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, and leading intellectuals. Key authors in economics and social sciences include Albert O. Hirschman, John Maynard Keynes, and Paul Krugman. In history and politics, seminal works have come from Bernard Lewis, Robert Darnton, and Sean Wilentz. Its science list features luminaries like Albert Einstein, who published The Meaning of Relativity with the press, and John von Neumann. Other landmark publications include Kurt Gödel's Collected Works, Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Thomas Piketty's best-selling Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The press has also published celebrated works by Cornel West, Elaine Pagels, and Joyce Carol Oates.

Governance and operations

As an integral part of Princeton University, the press operates under the guidance of a Board of Trustees appointed by the university's Board of Trustees. The director, a position held by Christie Henry since 2017, oversees its editorial and business operations. It functions as a nonprofit, with its financial sustainability relying on book sales, endowment support, and grants from institutions like the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its global reach is facilitated by a worldwide distribution partnership with John Wiley & Sons and regional offices, ensuring its scholarly publications are accessible in markets across North America, Europe, and Asia.

See also

* University press * Cambridge University Press * Oxford University Press * Harvard University Press * Bollingen Foundation * Annals of Mathematics

Category:Princeton University Category:Book publishing companies of the United States Category:University presses of the United States