Reading Spaces in South Africa, 1850–1920s

In the languages of their own reading spaces, South Africans achieved a unique ethos of improvement.

Archie L. Dick (Author)

9781108814706, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 November 2020

75 pages
12.5 x 18 x 0.3 cm, 0.1 kg

Voluntary societies and government initiatives stimulated the growth of reading communities in South Africa in the second half of the nineteenth century. A system of Parliamentary grants to establish public libraries in country towns and villages nurtured a lively reading culture. A condition was that the library should be open free-of-charge to the general public. This became one more reading space, and others included book societies, reading societies, literary societies, debating societies, mechanics institutes, and mutual improvement societies. This Element explains how reading communities used these spaces to promote cultural and literary development in a unique ethos of improvement, and to raise political awareness in South Africa's colonial transition to a Union government and racial segregation.

1. Introduction
2. Becoming literate, becoming literary
3. Reading, writing, debating, reciting
4. Dickens on the page, the podium, and the stage
5. The fiction Charlie Immelman read, and the films he watched
6. The Cape's global Islamic printing networks
7. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], African history [HBJH], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literature: history & criticism [DS]