Herbert S. Bailey Jr. ’42

Herbert Bailey, publisher and bookman, died June 28, 2011, in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Herb was born in New York City in 1921 and prepared at the Horace Mann School. At Princeton he was a member of Cloister Inn and graduated with honors in English and electrical engineering.  

Following graduation, Herb trained in radar in the Navy. Initially he worked as an instructor in Navy schools at Harvard and Princeton, but in the last year of World War II, he was assigned as a radar officer on the U.S.S. Intrepid. In 1945 he was discharged as a lieutenant.

After the war, Herb returned to Princeton as science editor of the Princeton University Press. In 1952 he was named editor of the Press; in 1954 he became director, a position he held until his retirement in 1986.

Under Herb’s leadership the Princeton University Press increasingly became recognized as a premier publisher of scholarly materials. Among admired editions published by the Press under Herb’s direction were The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, and The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. Herb received honorary degrees from Princeton and Yale and membership in the American Philosophical Society. His interest in the Class of 1942 never wavered. He was its president from 1967 to 1972.

Herb and Betty were married 68 years ago. To Betty; sons John, James, and George; and their daughter, Robin Bailey Barker, the class sends condolences.