The University of Pennsylvania Press exists to publish meritorious works that advance scholarly research and educational objectives. The Press was originally incorporated with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on 26 March 1890, and the imprint of the University of Pennsylvania Press first appeared on publications in the closing decade of the nineteenth century—among the earliest such imprints in America. Today the Press has an active backlist of roughly 1500 titles and an annual output of upwards of 120 new books and journal issues in a focused editorial program across the humanities and social sciences.