University of Virginia Library

U. Press Head, Reynolds, Retires;
Cowen Takes Over Director's Post

The man who has directed the
University Press of Virginia from its
beginning six years ago to its status
as a national pace-setter among
scholarly presses will step down at
the end of the month.

Victor Reynolds, who came here
in 1963 after directing the Cornell
University Press for 20 years, will
retire October 31. Succeeding him
as director will be Walker Cowen,
now associate director of the press.

Mr. Reynolds, a past president
of the Association of University
Presses, will be honored at the
University on October 16 at a
dinner in the Rotunda. Among the
guests will be presidents of four-year
educational institutions and
other scholarly institutions in Virginia.

'Begun in 1963, the press was the
nation's first publishing house designed
to serve on a state-wide basis
scholarly and higher education
institutions, both private and public.
This approach has set the
pattern for development of similar
presses by other states.

Since its formation, the press
has published or distributed some
250 books in association with a
wide variety of institutions such as
the American Association of Architectural
Bibliographers, Colonial
Williamsburg, Inc., the Jamestown
Foundation, Sweet Briar College,
Longwood College and the Virginia
State Library, as well as the
University itself.

A major project over the next

20 years will be the publication of
some 60 to 75 volumes of the first
complete edition of the papers of
George Washington now being compiled
and edited at the University.

Under Mr. Reynolds' direction,
the press has increased its book
sales from $23,000 at the end of
1963 to some $230,000 in the last
fiscal year. Each year it publishes
some 25 to 30 paperback and
hardbound books with specific
interest to scholars.

The press is located in the
Bemiss House at the University, a
building names for the late Samuel
Merrifield Bemiss of Richmond,
noted civic leader and historian
who served on the original board of
directors for the press.

Although he is retiring as director
of the press, Mr. Reynolds will
continue to teach a course in
Virginia geography in the University
of Virginia's department of
environmental sciences.

Mr. Cowen joined the University
in 1966 as assistant director of the
press and lecturer in the department
of English.

A native of Dalhart, Texas, he
earned his bachelor's and doctoral
degrees from Harvard University
where he was a Woodrow Wilson
Fellow. He also did graduate study
in English at the University of
California at Berkeley, worked with
a commercial publishing company
and started his own publishing
house before joining the University
Press of Virginia.