Since we began in 2005, we have produced over 900 titles, creating a body of work that presents a broad, previously underrepresented spectrum of documentary-type photography, with links to the British Isles. We include the work of British and Irish photographers working overseas, and international photographers working in the UK and Ireland. Our books document communities, streets, events, and cultural moments, offering a platform for images and archives that might otherwise remain unseen.
We work with photographers whose practice is rooted in the everyday, the overlooked, and the historically significant. The projects we publish span music, youth, fashion, and subcultures, religion, protest, and leisure. Generally archive material, at least 15 years old at the time of publishing. Our publications present each image and sequence without commentary or interpretation. Each book is a record: a way of seeing a place, a moment, or a movement, offered on its own terms.
Every publication is treated with care. Sequence, design, materials, and printing are chosen to support the work itself, and the collective series. Our editions are modest in scale and deliberately tactile, reflecting a belief that the book—its rhythm, texture, and presence—is central to how photography is experienced. Collectively, the books present a history of Britain, Ireland, and beyond, that could otherwise have been missed.
Café Royal Books has also become a resource. Our titles are used in education, in research for film, fashion, and TV, and by those seeking historical and cultural reference points. Collectively, they present a genre of photography that was not previously available as a comprehensive body of work, offering insight into the everyday and the overlooked across decades and geographies.
Our books do not instruct or interpret; they exist to be seen, considered, and returned to. They create a quiet record of the world as it was observed, capturing moments that might otherwise be lost.
Over two decades, Café Royal Books has built a catalogue that is as much a social and historical resource as it is a collection of individual works—an ongoing archive of observation and preservation, supporting research, education, and the appreciation of photography in its many forms.
Café Royal Books is a family run, independent publisher. Our aim is to make this work accessible, through affordable, utilitarian publications. We accept submissions—please see the link above—we publish work, irrespective of the gender, sexuality, race, belief or background of its maker.
Our books are available globally through book shops, galleries, and museums. We ship orders worldwide from this website. The books are collected by major institutions, Bodleian Library, Harvard University, MoMA, V&A, Tate, National Galleries of Scotland, Canada, Japan, for example.
We have been presented with the Royal Photographic Society Award for Photographic Publishing, and were finalists of the international Lucie Award for Editing.
Café refers to the "democracy of the table"—an accessible, neutral space for connection and respectful exchange. Royal is a standard industrial unit of paper, a centuries-old part of the print trade. Books…that’s arguable.
Images:
Archive Six — we produce archive boxes every 100th book.
Café Royal Books at Stills Gallery, photo by Alan Dimmick.
Café Royal Books at Martin Parr Foundation.
