Peary Chand Mitra
1814–1883
Biography
Peary Chand Mitra (1814–1883) was a Calcutta writer, journalist, cultural activist and businessman. He wrote under the pen name Tek Chand Thakur. He belonged to the Young Bengal group that gathered around the teacher Henry Derozio, and he took part in the wider Bengal Renaissance, a period of new thinking in literature and society.
His lasting contribution is to Bengali prose. Alaler Gharer Dulal, published in 1858 under the pen name, is generally counted as the first Bengali novel. It is written in the everyday, colloquial Bengali of Calcutta rather than the heavily Sanskritised style of most earlier prose. It follows a spoilt young man from a rich merchant family who squanders his education and his fortune, so it is also a satire on the newly rich of the city.
The novel opened a path that later writers followed, and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay was among those who took up the form. Any history of the Bengali novel usually begins with this book. The book on this site credited to Peary Chand Mitra is Alaler Gharer Dulal, and books printed under the name Tekchand Thakur are credited to this page too. He died in Calcutta on 23 November 1883.
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Books
আলালের ঘরের দুলাল
by প্যারীচাঁদ মিত্র
Baburam, the spoilt son of a rich Calcutta merchant, is indulged by his father, tutors and flatterers, and runs through his education and his money. Written in 1858 in the colloquial prose of the city and often called the first Bengali novel, it is both a satire on the new rich…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.