Introduction: anonymity, pseudonymity, and the question of agency in colonial West African newspapers -- Part 1. Newspapers in colonial West Africa -- The "fourth and only estate" : defining a public sphere in colonial West Africa -- Articulating empire: newspaper networks in colonial West Africa -- Part 2. Case studies from the Colonial Office -- The view from afar : the Colonial Office, imperial government, and pseudonymous African journalism -- Part 3. Case studies from West African newspapers -- Trickster tactics and the question of authorship in newspaper folktales -- Printing women : the gendering of literacy -- Nominal ladies and "real" women writers : female pseudonyms and the problem of authorial identity in the cases of "Rosa" and "Marjorie Mensah" -- Conclusion. "New visibilities" : African print subjects and the birth of the (postcolonial) author -- Appendix: I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson in court.