Atkins completed her three-volume Photographs of British Algae, the first multi-volume book illustrated with photographs, after a decade of work.
By November 1853, Anna Atkins had completed the full three-volume edition of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, a project she had worked on in instalments since 1843. Over roughly a decade, she issued twelve fascicles that were ultimately bound into three volumes containing several hundred captioned cyanotype plates alongside handwritten text pages documenting British seaweed and algae species.
This completed work stands as the first multi-volume book ever published with photographic illustrations, an extraordinary feat of sustained scientific and artistic labor undertaken largely by a single woman working outside formal institutional support. Atkins produced the cyanotypes herself, meticulously arranging specimens, exposing the sensitized paper to sunlight, and hand-lettering scientific captions for each plate.
The scale and rigor of the finished work reflect both Atkins's scientific training—shaped by her father's tutelage—and her determination to create an authoritative visual record of British algae at a time when photographically accurate botanical illustration was otherwise unattainable through conventional engraving methods.
Only a small number of complete sets were produced and distributed to friends, scientific societies, and institutions, making surviving copies extraordinarily rare and valuable today. The completed trilogy cemented Atkins's legacy as a foundational figure in both photographic history and botanical documentation, and it continues to be studied and exhibited by major institutions including the British Library and the Natural History Museum, London.