A rare book marking a literary milestone in South Africa has been discovered by a Fife university expert researching a 19th Century collection.

The lost work, which is written in French and tells the story of a forgotten shipwreck, is one of just seven copies known to exist.

David Culpin, of St Andrews University, found it while studying books owned by a governor of Cape Colony in the 1800s.

Cape Colony's present day name is Cape Town.

The book tells the tale of the Eole, a French merchant vessel which sank off the coast of Africa in April 1829, and of its eight survivors who walked barefoot for three weeks to safety....