Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, and focused on academic publishing

Academic publishing

Academic publishing describes the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in journal article, book or thesis form. The part of academic written output that is not formally published but merely printed up or posted is often called...

. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses

Association of American University Presses

The Association of American University Presses is an association of mostly, but not exclusively, North American university presses...

. Its current director is William P. Sisler and the editor-in-chief is Susan Wallace Boehmer.

The press maintains offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Harvard Square

Harvard Square

Harvard Square is a large triangular area in the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street, and John F. Kennedy Street. It is the historic center of Cambridge...

, and in London, England.

Notable HUP authors include Eudora Welty

Eudora Welty

Eudora Alice Welty was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published...

, Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...

, E. O. Wilson

E. O. Wilson

Edward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist, researcher , theorist , naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants....

, John Rawls

John Rawls

John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University....

, Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...

, Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....

, Helen Vendler

Helen Vendler

Helen Hennessy Vendler is a leading American critic of poetry.-Life and career:Vendler has written books on Emily Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, John Keats, and Seamus Heaney. She has been a professor of English at Harvard University since 1984; between 1981 and 1984 she taught...

, and Carol Gilligan

Carol Gilligan

Carol Gilligan is an American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist best known for her work with and against Lawrence Kohlberg on ethical community and ethical relationships, and certain subject-object problems in ethics. She is currently a Professor at New York University and a Visiting Professor...

.

The Display Room in Harvard Square, dedicated to selling HUP publications, closed on June 17, 2009. HUP has lent its name to the Harvard comma, because its house manual of style favors its use.

Related publishers, imprints, and series

HUP owns the Belknap Press imprint

Imprint

In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...

, which it inaugurated in May 1954 with the publication of the Harvard Guide to American History.

It distributes the Loeb Classical Library

Loeb Classical Library

The Loeb Classical Library is a series of books, today published by Harvard University Press, which presents important works of ancient Greek and Latin Literature in a way designed to make the text accessible to the broadest possible audience, by presenting the original Greek or Latin text on each...

 and I Tatti Renaissance Library

I Tatti Renaissance Library

The I Tatti Renaissance Library is a book series published by the Harvard University Press, which aims to present important works of Italian Renaissance Latin Literature to a modern audience by printing the original Latin text on each left-hand leaf , and an English translation on the facing page...

 series. It is distinct from Harvard Business Press

Harvard Business Press

Harvard Business Press is the book-specific division of Harvard Business School Publishing, owned by the Harvard Business School, based in Boston, MA.The Press publishes general interest books in addition to business books...

, which is part of Harvard Business Publishing, and the independent Harvard Common Press.

Political bias

A 2011 study of the books published by Harvard University Press during the 2000-2010 period and connected to political ideology found that out of 494 only eight "had an outlook that was conspicuously either classical liberal or conservative".

External links

• Publicity blog of Harvard University Press