[a] Following its founding in 1972, the publishing house was initially meant to publish specialized scholarship produced in Richardson's department at the University of St Michael's College,[b] Early publications included bibliographies, translations, and dissertations completed by faculty and doctoral students at the University of Toronto.

[4][6] The Mellen Press describes its ethos when selecting works to publish as valuing "scholar-for-scholar research more than anything", stating "the sole criterion for publication is that the manuscript must make a contribution to scholarship".

[7] Its Adèle Mellen Prize is awarded to an author for a book which, in the considered judgment of the press’ peer-reviewers, is deemed to make a "distinguished contribution to scholarship".

[21] The publisher's litigiousness began in 1993, when its former employee Robert West contacted the American academic magazine Lingua Franca.

[citation needed] Lingua Franca published "Vanity's Fare: The Peripatetic Professor and His Peculiarly Profitable Press" by Warren St. John as the cover story of its September/October 1993 issue.

In it he stated "I do not believe Herbert Richardson to be a 'rogue professor' nor do I believe that the Edwin Mellen Press was organized to be a vanity operation".

[25] In 2009, the press was successful in suing the academic Thom Brooks for blog postings found by the court to be defamatory.

[26][27] In 2012, the press pursued lawsuits against McMaster University and one of its librarians, Dale Askey, for $4.5 million in damages over statements alleged to be "false" and "defamatory in its tone and context".

[29] The Canadian Association of University Teachers and others condemned the press for what they called SLAPP lawsuits intended to curtail academic freedom.

According to coverage of this event in the Chronicle of Higher Education, more than 30 scholarly organizations condemned the press, which in turn maintained that its good reputation was at stake and had prompted the suit.