INTRODUCTION.
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee was unquestionably the greatest novelist that India has ever produced. No other writer has done so much to improve the style, and to raise the tone of Bengali literature. His severe criticisms on the worthless and ephemeral productions of so many of his fellow-countrymen, his fearless exposure of the faults and shortcomings of Hindu social life, and of the evils arising from a corrupt and superstitious form of Hindu religion, have brought about a complete revolution in the history of Bengali literature.
He was himself a vigorous author. His works display a wonderful power of description, and delineation of human life and character, which render them so deeply interesting and instructive, more especially to those who have had personal experience of everyday life amongst natives of Bengal. His earlier productions, commencing with "Durgesanandini" in 1865, were novels,
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