History of the Press

Claudia Goldin, author of Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity, is awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for her research advancing our understanding of women’s work force participation.

Director Christie Henry is awarded the Special Book Award of China. The Prize, which is administered by China’s National Press and Publication Administration, recognizes the work of foreign translators, writers, and publishers in facilitating cultural exchange and awareness between China and other countries.

The Press launches PUP Speaks, an in-house speakers’ agency, which represents a cohort of PUP authors and to develop new global speaking platforms.

The Press acquires 99 Banbury Road in Oxford, joining an active book and publishing community and increasing space for the further growth of PUP Europe and to host public events for authors and other partners.

The Obama Portraits is published in association with the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC.

Zone Books partners with Princeton University Press for marketing, sales, and distribution of their titles.

The Press is awarded the London Bookfair Excellence Award for an Academic and Professional Publisher, recognizing innovation in global publishing.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Wild Nature Press partner with Princeton University Press to produce a wide range of bird books and related products.

Available in 29 languages, On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt becomes the Press’s most translated title, followed by Not for Profit by Martha C. Nussbaum, available in 24 languages.

Princeton Audio, a new audio division, launches.

The Press opens an office in Beijing, China. 

Christie Henry becomes the Press’s ninth—and first female—director. 

The Digital Einstein Papers—an online platform that provides readers around the world with open access to The Collected Papers—is launched. 

The Great Escape by Angus Deaton

The Press launches Princeton Legacy Library, an initiative that runs through 2019 and uses the latest print on demand technology to bring over 2,700 distinguished back list titles back into print. 

Through the Eye of a Needle by Peter Brown 

The Press expands its digital content, publishing its first app, Mammals of North America. 

The Poison King by Adrienne Mayor. This book goes on to become a National Book Award finalist. 

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics edited by Timothy Gowers 

The Press launches a new brand identity designed by Chermayeff & Geismar.

Peter J. Dougherty becomes the Press’s eighth director. 

Women Don’t Ask by Linda Babcock & Sara Laschever 

The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World edited by Richard J. A. Talbert

Irrational Exuberance by Robert J. Shiller. This book goes on to become an international best seller. 

The Press opens a European office in Woodstock, England.

The Press sells the Laughlin Building, which had housed the printing plant, the accounting offices, and the book warehouse and shipping department. With these operations housed elsewhere, the selling of the building was the last action ending an era of self‑contained publishing.

Walter H. Lippincott becomes the Press’s seventh director.

The Passions and the Interests by Albert O. Hirschman

Paul Mellon donates the Bollingen series to the Press, bringing notable titles such as The I Ching, Or Book of Changes (which remains the Press’s single bestselling book with more than 900,000 copies in print) and The Collected Works of C. G. Jung.

The Press builds the Henry A. Laughlin Building, a new 55,000-square-foot printing plant in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, moves its printing operations offsite, modernizes its offices, and launches a paperback publication program.

A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 by Milton Friedman & Anna Jacobson Schwartz alters the landscape of economic thinking and has an unparalleled impact on economic policy. 

Art and Illusion by E. H. Gombrich 

P. J. Conkwright, the Press’s chief designer and typographer from 1939 to 1970, becomes an AIGA Medalist.

Herbert S. Bailey, Jr. becomes the Press’s sixth director.

Nietzsche by Walter Kaufmann

In a ceremony at the Library of Congress led by President Harry S. Truman, the Press presents the first volume of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, a tremendous project conceived by the man who became its first editor, Julian P. Boyd. 

Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by John von Neumann & Oskar Morgenstern. This book introduces a groundbreaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization based on games of strategy, which not only revolutionizes economics but also leads to an entirely new field of scientific inquiry. 

And Still the Waters Run by Angie Debo. This book quickly becomes a catalyst for the scholarly exploration of American Indian History. 

Modern Architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright 

The Meaning of Relativity by Albert Einstein. This popularization of Einstein’s theory remains in print to this day. It was also Einstein’s first book published in the United States. 

Wasp Studies Afield by Nellie Rau—the Press’s first female author—and her husband Phil Rau 

Heredity and Environment in the Development of Men by biologist E. G. Conklin. With the Darwinian controversy still alive, this book becomes the Press’s first best seller.

The Press publishes its first book: a new edition of Lectures on Moral Philosophy by John Witherspoon, the eighteenth-century president of Princeton University’s predecessor, the College of New Jersey. 

The Press occupies its newly constructed, purpose-built building on William Street in Princeton, New Jersey. Designed by architect Ernest Flagg (brother-in-law of Charles Scribner II), the Collegiate Gothic‑style building and courtyard was modeled on the Plantin‑Moretus Museum in Antwerp, Belgium.

Princeton University Press is reincorporated as a nonprofit company.

Whitney Darrow, a recent Princeton graduate managing the Alumni Weekly, approaches New York publisher Charles Scribner II with a proposal for the Press. Later that year, Princeton Alumni Press opens as a small printer in rented quarters above Marsh’s drugstore on Nassau Street in Princeton, New Jersey with Darrow as its first director.