Secret letter sent by Mandela as prisoner is posted online

In the letter – dated September 14, 1962 and addressed to the British Embassy in Pretoria – Mr Mandela thanks Sir John Maud, the British ambassador in South Africa, and John Astor, editor of The Observer, for their help in ensuring he received books to help him study while he was in prison.

Mandela received six books – A Short History of Africa by Roland Oliver and JD Fage; A History of Europe (Vol I and II) by HAL Fisher; Essays in Biography by JM Keynes; Anatomy of Britain by Anthony Sampson; and The Making of the President by Theodore H White – while in prison in South Africa.

It is not known whether a further five books, including My Early Life by Winston Churchill, reached him.

Mr Mandela, who was jailed for 27 years during the struggle to replace the apartheid regime with a multi-racial democracy, refers to the books as a “valuable present” in the letter and thanks “his friend in England” Mr Astor.

Under Mr Astor’s editorship, The Observer supported the African National Congress, which Mandela supported and later led, from the early years of apartheid.

Mr Astor and Sir John used their connections to ensure the books avoided scrutiny from the South African authorities and reached Mr Mandela, who went on after his release from prison in 1990 to become the country’s first black president.

The letter, made available online to mark World Book Day, is contained in previously top secret government records on Mr Mandela’s arrest and trial, which are on show at the National Archives in Kew, south-west London.