It is an imprint of Pearson plc, a global publishing and education company.

In addition to publishing books, Addison–Wesley also distributes its technical titles through the O'Reilly Online Learning e-reference service.

Lew Addison Cummings and Melbourne Wesley Cummings founded Addison–Wesley in 1942, with the first book published by Addison–Wesley being Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Francis Weston Sears' Mechanics.

It was purchased by the global publishing and education company Pearson PLC in 1988[2] and became part of Addison Wesley Longman in 1994.

Pearson moved the former Addison Wesley Longman offices from Reading, Massachusetts, to Boston in 2004.