Cornell University’s first press was in its engineering faculty because engineers knew more about steam-driven printing presses than literature professors.
Cornell University Press was the first university press to be established in the United States, tracing its origins to 1869, but left the steam engine behind a long time ago.
Cornell University Press publishes more than 100 new titles each year, with the biological sciences and natural history among its particular strengths.
Among series are the Cornell Program in Herpetology, the Cornell Series in Arthropod Biology, and the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Birds of Brazil field guides. Many of Cornell’s natural history titles are published under the Comstock Publishing Associates imprint, including the Comstock Classic Handbooks on North American reptiles.
Field guides and handbooks, chiefly on birds, plants and animals found in North America, Central America and the Caribbean, are complemented by specialised books on botany, ecology, entomology, herpetology, ornithology, ichthyology, mammalogy, microbiology, and general environment and natural history titles.
