Fifty years ago, the University Press at Virginia began as a consortium press designed to serve the needs of the higher education system in the state. In 2002, the governing board of the university asked the press to change its name to the University of Virginia Press. Interim director Mark Saunders wryly notes, “Just when we had trained all the journalists in the state to know our name, we pulled the rug out from under them. But the change represented a recognition that we had always been hosted by and tied to UVA.”
The UVA Press specializes in history, especially the history of the early republic, as well as 19th-century literature, and has a series in Francophone, African, and Caribbean literature. It also publishes an annual Best New Poets anthology, featuring the top 50 emerging American poets who have never been published in books.
Looking over 50 years of publishing milestones, Saunders tells Show Daily, “In the ’90s, our best known work—notorious in some circles—was Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy by Annette Gordon-Reed, who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. But this was her first book. She trained as a lawyer at Harvard Law School and sifted through the evidence for and against a liaison between Hemings and Jefferson, and whether they had produced children. She argued it as a court case.” Saunders notes that a few years after publication, a former UVA biologist examined DNA evidence that proved Heming descendants came from the Jefferson male line. “It was pretty major for the press to do that book.”
Emily Grandstaff, the marketing and publicity manager, points to another standout publication. “In 2006, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, we published William Kelso’s Jamestown, the Buried Truth. He’s the chief archeologist down there and uncovered the Jamestown settlement that they thought had been washed away. It’s been back in the news recently because he also uncovered a 14-year-old girl’s bones that showed they had to resort to cannibalism over the course of this one horrifying winter. But even before this recent news, the book did well for us.”
In 2001 the UVA Press received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to create a digital imprint, which gave rise to the press’s electronic publishing program now called Rotunda. Its offerings include the papers of George Washington and James Madison, as well as presidential recordings. UVA will be launching a free online version of the Rotunda Founders Early Access collection, which includes material from other universities.
To celebrate its anniversary, UVA Press (booth 1747) will be giving out bobblehead border collie dogs to celebrate its lead spring title, Mr. and Mrs. Dog: Our Travels, Trials, Adventures and Epiphanies by bestselling author Donald McCaig (Mar.). Also available, two lead fall titles: Rot, Riot, and Rebellion: Mr. Jefferson’s Struggle to Save the University That Changed America by award-winning reporters Rex Bowman and Carlos Santos (Aug.) and The Way of the 88 Temples: Journey on the Shikoku Pilgrimage by Robert Sibley (Aug.). Also on offer are copies of the press’s first published book, A Voyage to Virginia in 1609.
