Call Number:

C0728

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

554 boxes

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Princeton University Press Records, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1905-2014 (inclusive) and 1940s-1990s (bulk)

Creator:

Princeton university press

Form:

Catalogs., Correspondence., and Minutes.

Abstract:

The Princeton University Press Records document the business acitivities of Princeton University Press. They include extensive files on works published by the press, as well as staff files, review files, editorial board and board of trustees files, financial information, production files, and publications.

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 Princeton University Press Records document the business acitivities of Princeton University Press. They include extensive files on works published by the press. The bulk of the collection is made up of the Press's General Files, which include correspondence with reviewers and authors as well as Editorial Board dossiers (reports by staff and readers); contract information; files describing each project's editorial, production, and manufacturing characteristics and concerns ("Manuscript Transmittal Forms"); copyright and permissions information; production schedules; copyeditors' stylesheets and designers' specification sheets; and promotion and marketing files. The records also include the files of three former directors, Datus C. Smith, Herbert S. Bailey, and Walter H. Lippincott, as well as review files, editorial board and board of trustees files, financial information, production files, and selected publications.

This collection consists of the Press's paper records only. Records maintained by the Press in electronic form are not included and remain at Princeton University Press.