David Van Nostrand was born on December 5, 1811, in New York, New York.

He was a New York City publisher. In 1826, after graduating from Lewis E. A. Eigenbrodt’s Union Hall, a classical school in Jamaica, Long Island, at the age of fifteen, he began to work for a bookseller and publisher, John P. Haven. During the 1830s, he was briefly involved in a book sales and publishing partnership, but the depression of 1837 caused its demise. Van Nostrand spent the next eleven years in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he studied engineering and worked as a clerk of accounts and disbursements. In 1848, he returned to New York City. He established his bookselling and publishing operations, an enterprise that grew into the D. Van Nostrand Publishing firm, one of the major science and engineering publishers. He specialized in imported books on science, military and naval engineering, and mathematics. Following the Civil War, publications became more industry oriented. In 1869, Van Nostrand's Engineering Magazine was founded, followed by The American Chemical Journal. Van Nostrand played an active role in organizations of benefit to New York City, including the Academy of Design, the Century Club, the Historical Society, the Holland Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Natural History Society, the St. Nicholas Club, and the Union League. The books "Van Nostrand's Encyclopedia of Chemistry" and "Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia" are still published today by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

In 1833, he married Eliza Sophia Lewis (1807-1835), and in 1848, he remarried Sarah Ann Nichols (1825-1897). He died on June 14, 1886, in New York, New York.