When José Eusebio Llano Zapata travelled from Peru to Spain in the middle of the eighteenth century, he remarked on the difference between the book markets. The Peruvian scholar who had travelled across the Atlantic, and had experienced both places, clearly judged the colonial book market favourably, and saw it as as bearing comparison with Europe's. In characterising the trade, he emphasised the wide variety of books that were available. In addition, he outlined a broad readership composed of both men and women, conveying the impression that books were an accessible object. In the following decades, more and more people in colonial society gained access to locally printed and imported books. This Introduction sets the historical and historiographic scene. It calls for a social history of books and prints, and reflects the status of Lima as a ‘Lettered City’ with social and spatial hierarchies.