OF LONDON
"Cities are remembered by their landmarks. But they are understood through their people."
A PORTRAIT OF A CITY, ONE STORY AT A TIME
OF LONDON is an independent publishing house created to capture contemporary London through beautifully crafted books, original photography and personal storytelling.
Each title begins with a single subject — the pets we share our lives with, the cocktails we drink, the food we cross the city for, the corners of London we make our own, the people we meet along the way — and through it explores something much bigger.
Because a city is more than its architecture, its history or the things for which it is famous. It is millions of individual lives unfolding alongside one another. Friendships and families. Rituals and chance encounters. Favourite places and familiar faces. Stories that may seem ordinary while they are happening, but which together become the character of a city.
Those are the stories OF LONDON exists to tell.
MADE TO LAST
We believe some stories deserve more than a moment on a screen.
There is something enduring about a book. The weight of it in your hands. The turn of a page. Photography given space to breathe. Stories returned to years after they were first read.
That is why every OF LONDON title is conceived as an object as much as a publication — thoughtfully designed, beautifully photographed and made with care.
The stories belong to London today. The books are made for what they might become tomorrow.
A NOTE FROM THE FOUNDER
I have always believed that the most interesting stories are often the ones happening right in front of us.
My journey into publishing began more than twenty years ago, creating books that celebrated independent businesses and the people behind them. What fascinated me then is much the same as what fascinates me now: the idea that places become meaningful because of the people, relationships and stories contained within them.
Eventually, that journey brought me to London. Living here made me curious about the city beyond the version we all recognise. The London found in conversations and friendships, favourite places and familiar faces; in the lives being lived behind front doors, across restaurant tables, in parks, pubs, studios, shops and streets.
OF LONDON grew from a desire to capture some of those stories.
The Pets of London became our first book. What began as a celebration of the relationship between Londoners and their pets gradually revealed something much bigger: a portrait of people, neighbourhoods, friendships and belonging. It made me realise that there were countless other ways we could tell the story of this extraordinary city.
And so one book became the beginning of a Collection.
I don't know exactly what London will look like twenty years from now. That's part of the reason I want to document something of it today.
My hope is that these books will be beautiful objects to own now, but that with time they become something else too — a record of the people, places and moments that made London what it was.
Because ultimately, OF LONDON isn't really about London.
It's about the lives lived here.
Paul Madison
Founder & Publisher