The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial support ofCharles Scribner, as aprinting press to serve the Princeton community in 1905.[2] Its distinctive building was constructed in 1911 on William Street in Princeton.[3] Its first book was a new 1912 edition ofJohn Witherspoon'sLectures on Moral Philosophy.[4]
Princeton University Press was founded in 1905 by Princeton graduate and manager of theAlumni Weekly, Whitney Darrow. It began as Princeton Alumni Press, a small printing house which published thePrinceton Alumni Weekly. The press received financial support from Princeton alumnus,Charles Scribner II.[5] Darrow and Scribner purchased the equipment and assumed the operations of two already existing local publishers, that of thePrinceton Alumni Weekly and the Princeton Press. The new press printed both local newspapers, university documents,The Daily Princetonian, and later added book publishing to its activities.[6] Beginning as a small, for-profit printer, Princeton University Press was reincorporated as a nonprofit in 1910.[7]
Since 1911, the press has been headquartered in a purpose-built gothic-style building designed byErnest Flagg. The design of press's building, which was named the Scribner Building in 1965, was inspired by the Plantin-Moretus Museum, a printing museum in Antwerp, Belgium. In 1912, the Press published its first book, a new edition ofLectures on Moral Philosophy byJohn Witherspoon.[5]
Princeton University Press established a European office, in Woodstock, England, north of Oxford, in 1999, and opened an additional office, in Beijing, in early 2017.[5]
In 2025, Princeton University Press was criticized when several members of its staff appeared in Chinesestate media on an officially-sanctioned tour of sites inXinjiang.[10][11][12]
Princeton University Press's Bollingen Series had its beginnings in theBollingen Foundation, a 1943 project ofPaul Mellon's Old Dominion Foundation. From 1945, the foundation had independent status, publishing and providing fellowships and grants in several areas of study, includingarchaeology,poetry, andpsychology. The Bollingen Series was given to the university in 1969.
