Herbert S. Bailey, Jr., former director of Princeton University Press, died on June 28. He was 89. Bailey, who was director of PUP from 1945 to 1986, joined the house in 1946 as a science editor. He graduated from Princeton in 1942 and was named director at the age of 32, making him the youngest head of a university press in the country at the time.
Bailey, who also served as president of the Association of American University Presses, retired in 1986 and, that year, won the Curtis Benjamin Award from the AAP as well as the Bowker Award for Creative Publishing. At PUP Bailey worked on such noted books as The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau and The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. He also acquired the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of The I Ching, or Book of Changes, which remains the Press's bestselling book with over 900,000 copies in print. Bailey also wrote a book, 1970's The Art and Science of Book Publishing.
Bailey relocated to Chapel Hill, N.C., after he retired but came back to PUP in 2005 when the Press celebrated its centennial. During the event a line from Bailey's book was cited as the standard the Press still strives for: "What makes a great publishing house are great books, written by great authors, edited by great editors, designed with taste, produced with skill and efficiency, and energetically and widely sold."
Bailey is survived by his wife, Betty, four children, five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
