The accidental growth of book history: A literature review of print culture and book history studies in South Africa

The study of book history is in its infancy in South Africa, with a small group of scholars \nworking in the area and little sense of a shared body of literature, which could be used as \nfoundational texts for those wishing to conduct research in this fi eld. This article describes \nan attempt to map the terrain of book and print culture studies in South Africa to date. \nAlthough it is only in recent years that writings have come to be grouped under a broader \nheading of book history (whether at conferences or in special issues of journals), work \nhas been done in this fi eld since the early twentieth century. This is similar to the situation \nin other countries, where the ‘accidental’ growth of book history has meant that a great \ndeal of work has been done on a wide variety of relevant topics. The article describes \nkey strands in the literature, including print history, publishing history, the overlap with \nliterary history, and studies of readership and reception.