Devaki Nandan Khatri was the first author of mystery novels in India.  His writings created a novel-reading public in Hindi.  His best-seller, Chandrakanta - a romance with dazzling elements of make - believe fantasy is believed to have contributed immensely in popularising the Hindi language.  It also promoted the Nagari script among the educated classes of those times.  Although, it was apparently written purely for the 'pleasure of reading', this .novel also given some interesting insights into the fears and desires of its reading public.

Devaki Nandan Khatri was the first author of mystery novels in India.  His writings created a novel-reading public in Hindi.  His best-seller, Chandrakanta - a romance with dazzling elements of make - believe fantasy is believed to have contributed immensely in popularising the Hindi language.  It also promoted the Nagari script among the educated classes of those times.  Although, it was apparently written purely for the 'pleasure of reading', this .novel also given some interesting insights into the fears and desires of its reading public.

(i) Industrialisation: Industrialisation provided an opportunity to the women to work in factories.  this provided them economic freedom.
(ii) Urbanisation: Industrialisation led to urbanisation.  The urban families started provided equal opportunities both to men and women.
(iii) Increase in income : The eighteenth century saw the middle classes become novels began exploring the world of women - their emotions and identities, their experiences and problems.  Many novels were about domestic life - a theme about which women were allowed to speak with authority. They drew upon their experience, wrote about family life and earned public recognition.

(i) Introduction of libraries : But soon, people had easier access to books with the introduction of circulating libraries in 1740.
(ii) Cheap novels: Technological improvements in printing brought down the price of books and innovations in marketing led to expanded sales.

(iii) Hiring out novels : In France, publishers found that they could make super profits by hiring out novels by the hour.  The novel was one of the first mass-produced items to be sold.

(i) Introduction of libraries : But soon, people had easier access to books with the introduction of circulating libraries in 1740.
(ii) Cheap novels: Technological improvements in printing brought down the price of books and innovations in marketing led to expanded sales.

(iii) Hiring out novels : In France, publishers found that they could make super profits by hiring out novels by the hour.  The novel was one of the first mass-produced items to be sold.

(i) For a long time the publishing market excluded the poor.  Initially, novels did not come cheap.  Henty Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) was issued in six volumes priced at three shillings each-which was more than what a labourer earned in a week.
(ii) Literacy level of the poor was very low due to non-availability of schools for poor.

(i) The early novels contributed to colonialism making the readers feel that they were a part of a superior community of fellow colonialists.
(ii) The hero of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is an adventurer and a slave trader, who treated the coloured people as sub-humans
(iii) Most of the writers of that time saw colonialism as natural.
(iv) Colonised people were seen as primitive and barbaric, and colonial rule was considered necessary to civilize them.

(i) World of women : Women got more leisure to read as well as write novels. And novels began exploring the world of women-their emotions and identities, their experiences and problems.
(ii) Domestic life: Many novels were about domestic life - a theme about which women were allowed to speak with authority.  They drew upon their experience, wrote about their family life and earned public recognition.
(iii) Women Authors: Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot etc were some of the best-known novelists of that era.  They wrote about a society which encouraged women to look for good marriages and find wealthy or propertied husbands.
(iv) Independent and assertive : But women novelists did not simply popularise the domestic role of women.  Often their novels dealt with women who broke established norms of society before adjusting to them.  Such stories allowed women readers to sympathise with rebellious actions.  In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, published in 1847, young Jane is shown as independent and assertive.  While girls of her time were expected to be quiet and well behaved, jane at the age of ten protests against the hypocrisy of her elders with startling bluntness.

(i) World of women : Women got more leisure to read as well as write novels. And novels began exploring the world of women-their emotions and identities, their experiences and problems.
(ii) Domestic life: Many novels were about domestic life - a theme about which women were allowed to speak with authority.  They drew upon their experience, wrote about their family life and earned public recognition.
(iii) Women Authors: Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot etc were some of the best-known novelists of that era.  They wrote about a society which encouraged women to look for good marriages and find wealthy or propertied husbands.
(iv) Independent and assertive : But women novelists did not simply popularise the domestic role of women.  Often their novels dealt with women who broke established norms of society before adjusting to them.  Such stories allowed women readers to sympathise with rebellious actions.  In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, published in 1847, young Jane is shown as independent and assertive.  While girls of her time were expected to be quiet and well behaved, jane at the age of ten protests against the hypocrisy of her elders with startling bluntness.

Stories in prose were not new to India.  Banabhatta's Kadambari, written in Sanskrit in the seventh century, is an early example.  The Panchatantra is another.  There was also a long tradition of prose tales of adventure and heroism in Persian and Urdu, known as dastan.

(i) At the time when the novel was written Indian girls were not allowed to choose their partners. The intelligent Indulekha refused to accept this practice and decided to marry to an educated and handsome boy of Nayar community.
(ii) The novel highlights how the women struggled to get out of unfair social norms of that time.
(iii) Indulekha is a graceful Nair girl with good intelligence, artistic talent. She is a young and educated, knowledgeable young woman with education in English Sanskrit, who is in love with another young man, Madhavan, the hero of the novel, who was also presented in ideal colours, a member of newly educated class from University of Madras. The story details how the matrilineal society of those times, encourages Namboothiris to start a relationship with Indulekha. Indulekha promptly snubs the old Nambudiri man, but Madhavan in haste runs away from the household, to Bengal. There he makes a lot of good friends. In the end, he arrives back and is united with Indulekha.

(i) At the time when the novel was written Indian girls were not allowed to choose their partners. The intelligent Indulekha refused to accept this practice and decided to marry to an educated and handsome boy of Nayar community.
(ii) The novel highlights how the women struggled to get out of unfair social norms of that time.
(iii) Indulekha is a graceful Nair girl with good intelligence, artistic talent. She is a young and educated, knowledgeable young woman with education in English Sanskrit, who is in love with another young man, Madhavan, the hero of the novel, who was also presented in ideal colours, a member of newly educated class from University of Madras. The story details how the matrilineal society of those times, encourages Namboothiris to start a relationship with Indulekha. Indulekha promptly snubs the old Nambudiri man, but Madhavan in haste runs away from the household, to Bengal. There he makes a lot of good friends. In the end, he arrives back and is united with Indulekha.

(i) To create a sense of equality: Colonial rulers regarded the contemporary culture of India as inferior. On the other hand, Indian novelist wrote to develop a modern literature of the country that could produce a sense of national belonging and cultural equality with their colonial masters.
(ii) To protect values of India's tradition and culture : Many novelist like that of Srinivas Das had expressed their fear and anger about the intermining of Indian and Western culture. The world of colonial modernity seems to be both frightening and irresistible to the characters. The novel tries to teach the reader the 'right way' to live and expects all 'sensible men' to be worldly- wise and practical, to remain rooted in the values of their own tradition and culture, and to live with dignity and honour.
(iii) The novel and nation making: Many novelists wrote about Marathas and Rajputs. These novels produced sense of a pan Indian belonging. The imagined nation of the novel was so powerful that it could inspire actual political movements. Bankims Anandamath (1882) is a novel about a secret Hindu militia that fights Muslims to establish a Hindu kingdom. It was a novel that inspired many kinds of freedom fighters.
(iv) Historical novels about Marathas and Rajputs : In Bengal, many historical novels. were about Marathas and Rajputs. These novels produced a sense of a pan-Indian belonging. They imagined the nation to be full of adventure, heroism, romance and sacrifice - qualities that could not be found in the offices and streets of the nineteenth- century world. The novel allowed the colonized to give shape to their desires.
(v) Shivaji as a nationalist: Bengali novel Anguriya Binimoy has shown Shivaji as a nationalist fighting for the freedom of Hindus.

(i) To create a sense of equality: Colonial rulers regarded the contemporary culture of India as inferior. On the other hand, Indian novelist wrote to develop a modern literature of the country that could produce a sense of national belonging and cultural equality with their colonial masters.
(ii) To protect values of India's tradition and culture : Many novelist like that of Srinivas Das had expressed their fear and anger about the intermining of Indian and Western culture. The world of colonial modernity seems to be both frightening and irresistible to the characters. The novel tries to teach the reader the 'right way' to live and expects all 'sensible men' to be worldly- wise and practical, to remain rooted in the values of their own tradition and culture, and to live with dignity and honour.
(iii) The novel and nation making: Many novelists wrote about Marathas and Rajputs. These novels produced sense of a pan Indian belonging. The imagined nation of the novel was so powerful that it could inspire actual political movements. Bankims Anandamath (1882) is a novel about a secret Hindu militia that fights Muslims to establish a Hindu kingdom. It was a novel that inspired many kinds of freedom fighters.
(iv) Historical novels about Marathas and Rajputs : In Bengal, many historical novels. were about Marathas and Rajputs. These novels produced a sense of a pan-Indian belonging. They imagined the nation to be full of adventure, heroism, romance and sacrifice - qualities that could not be found in the offices and streets of the nineteenth- century world. The novel allowed the colonized to give shape to their desires.
(v) Shivaji as a nationalist: Bengali novel Anguriya Binimoy has shown Shivaji as a nationalist fighting for the freedom of Hindus.

(i) Colonisation: The modem novel form developed in India in, the nineteenth century, as Indians became familiar with the Western novel. Novels began appearing in south Indian languages during the period of colonial rule.
(ii) Medium of entertainment: As elsewhere in the world, in India too, the novel became a popular medium of entertainment among the middle class. The circulation of printed books allowed people to amuse themselves in new ways. Picture books, translations from other languages, popular songs sometimes composed on contemporary events, stories in newspapers and magazines - all these offered new forms of entertainment. Within this new culture of print, novels soon became immensely popular. In Tamil, for example, there was a flood of popular novels in the early decades of the twentieth century.
(iii) Popularity of detective and mystery Novels: Detective and mystery novels often had to be printed again and again to meet the demand of readers: some of them were reprinted as many as twenty-two times.
(iv) Novels and silent reading: The novel also assisted in the spread of silent reading. As late as the nineteenth century and perhaps even in the early twentieth century, written texts were often read aloud for several people to hear. Sometimes novels were also read in this way, but in general novels encouraged reading alone and in silence. Individuals sitting at home or travelling in trains enjoyed them.
(v) Novels and women: A reason for the popularity of novels among women was that it allowed for a new conception of womanhood. Stories of love - which was a staple theme of many novels showed women who could choose or refuse their partners and relationships.