Welcome to Addison Publications
Addison Publications is a small specialist publishing house based in London, England.
HM King Charles III with Nigel Frith and Henrietta Pearson of Addison Publications, looking at the Transylvania Florilegium.
Addison Publications, founded in 2003, are experts in the creation of limited edition, high-quality books. The traditional crafting of the publications is as prized, as beautiful and as rare as the text and illustrations that lie between the hand-tooled leather covers.
From the very beginning, Addison set out to invest in the craft as well as the content.
Addison’s original founding partners Henrietta Pearson and Nigel Frith met when they began working together at the respected Alecto Historical Editions. They went on to launch their new London publishing house, Addison Publications, which would combine traditional bookmaking craft with the latest advances in lithographic printing.
Addison Publications is committed to supporting the continuation of traditional book-making skills. Our publications are created in collaboration with a team of expert bookbinders, paper specialists, leather producers and fine art illustrators. Our books are collected by institutions and libraries, museums and private collectors around the world.
The Royal Florilegia
Addison Publications’ signature work comprises the two British royal florilegia: the Highgrove Florilegium and the Transylvania Florilegium. These two collections of botanical art, exquisitely bound and showcasing the work of the finest botanical artists, celebrate the lifelong passion of His Majesty King Charles III for the natural world; organic gardening at Highgrove House and the sustainable protection of European wildflower habitats.
Each set of the Highgrove Florilegium and the Transylvania Florilegium is signed by the then Prince of Wales, now HM The King.
Rare Book Facsimiles
Addison Publications holds a remarkable collection of limited-edition facsimiles of rare and beautiful books. The Domesday Book has been much in demand by scholars and libraries around the world. Other treasures include The Book of Kells, The Lindisfarne Gospels, The Bedford Hours, and works of natural history. The portfolio includes the first ever edition of Banks’ Florilegium, using 743 copperplate engravings commissioned by the ship’s naturalist, Joseph Banks, from a compendium of drawings of plants made on Captain Cook’s first voyage 1768-1771. Also, Mark Catesby’s early 18th-century Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, made with kind permission of the Royal Collection, and a facsimile set of drawings by Ferdinand Bauer, the botanical artist who accompanied Captain Mathew Flinders on his circumnavigation of Australia in 1801-3.
Bespoke Commissions
Addison offers a service to private clients, creating facsimiles of unique or fragile documents. Commissions have ranged from a medieval charter on vellum, the original of which a school wanted to donate to the British Library, to an extremely rare Islamic manuscript on thousand-year-old Baghdadi paper for a client in the Middle East.
When books and documents become so precious that they cannot be handled, this bespoke service becomes invaluable to owners and institutions.