Call Number:

C0132

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 1 box
• 0.2 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Paul Elmer More Correspondence, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1916-1936 (inclusive)

Creator:

More, Paul Elmer (1864-1937)

Form:

Correspondence -- 20th century

Abstract:

Consists of correspondence between Paul Elmer More and the Princeton University Press, which published several of his books during the period from 1916 to 1936.

Paul Elmer More, American essayist and critic, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on December 12, 1864. More taught Sanskrit at Harvard (1894-1895) and Bryn Mawr (1895-1897). He was literary editor for The Independent for three years and associated with the New York Evening Post for six years. During 1919 he lectured on Plato at Princeton University. More was associated with Irving Babbitt (founder and champion of humanism) of the modern humanistic movement. He authored many critical essays which were published in more than eleven volumes.

Princeton University Press opened on 30 Nassau Street in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1905 with a capital of $25,000. Charles Scribner '1875 served as its first president. In 1910 the Press was reincorporated under an act providing for not-for-profit organizations "to establish, maintain, and operate a printing and publishing plant, for the promotion of education and scholarship, and to serve the University by its manufacturing and distributing publications." Its first incorporators were Charles Scribner, M. Taylor Pyne, Archibald D. Russell, Parker D. Handy, Clarence Blair Mitchell, Arthur H. Scribner, and Robert Bridges. In 1911, Mr. Scribner contributed the site for the Press at the corners of William and Charlton Streets as well as the Press building and much of the printing machinery.

Since the publication of its first book, Princeton University President John Witherspoon's Lectures in Moral Philosophy (1912), the P.U.P has published well over 2000 titles. Among these are such seminal works as Einstein's Theory of Relativity and von Neumann and Morgenstern's The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. The Press has also undertaken such long-range projects as the publication of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Julian Boyd, and The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, edited by Arthur Link. Since its 1905, the Press has also printed The Princeton Alumni Weekly.

Although closely connected with the University, the Princeton University Press is a separate corporation. Nine of its fifteen trustees must be members of the faculty or administration of the University or alumni. The president of Princeton University, an ex-officio trustee, appoints four faculty members to five-year terms on the editorial board, which controls the imprint of the Press.

The collection consists of correspondence between More and the Princeton University Press, which published several of his books during the period from 1916 to 1936. Among the books discussed are Platonism (1917), Religion of Plato (1921), and The Christ of the New Testament (1924).

The collection is arranged chronologically.