Durgeshnandini
Written probably between 1862 and 1864, and published in March 1865, Durgeshnandini - the Bengali heroine who fell in love with her Rajput hero - was Bankim Chandra's first novel. It is indeed the first full blown Bengali novel. According to some, it is modelled on Scott's famous Ivan Ho. Soon after publication it took "Bengali heart by storm"1. The conservatives were alarmed and they criticised it as a departure from the established norm. But it attracted a great number of extended mostly favourable reviews in the highly regarded periodicals of the time such as Sambad Prabhakar, the Hindu Patriot, Somprakash, Rahashya Sandharva etc. Durgeshnandini's popularity was so enormous that thirteen editions had to be printed up to mid 1890's. Many more ever since. It was translated to English in 1880, Hindi in 1882 and to Kannada in 1885.
Acknowledgement:
Much of the materials for this article was sourced from the Bankim Rachanabali (Complete Works of Bankim Chandra), Tuli-Kalam, Calcutta 1986