Reading and Libraries in Nineteenth-century Angola

Abstract

This essay demonstrates how, in spite of the absence of public and private schools, the practice of reading filled the daily lives of certain social groups in Luanda, Benguela and Novo Redondo during the first half of the nineteenth century. Whites, black and mulattos all shared in the "reading habit" They relied on the innumerable private libraries that existed during this period. The thesis of the Boletim Oficial, which argues that reading began in Angola starting in 1845, has no credibility.