Synopsis The novels in India is conventionally thought to have emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century. The year of the rebellion, 1857, also saw the publication of Alaler Gharer Dulal, upon which Bankimchandra Chatterji, who himself holds a lofty place in the development of the novel in India, lavished praise as a "beautiful written" work. The contemporary assessment of the merits of this wok has been more restrained, but nonetheless Alaler Gharer Dulal is thought to occupy a unique position in the history of India, and certainly Bengali, literature as "the first work in Bengali which can be described as a novel". The book covers all the great Indian novels and novelists.