In 1910, Premchand switched from Urdu to Hindi with a story called Bade Ghara Ki Beti with which we have decided to open this collection. The stories have been arranged chronologically, to give the interested reader a clear idea of the development of Premchand as a story writer conscientiously working on and improving his narrative craft over a period of twenty-six years, 1910-1936 with the exception of the last four stories (which have been taken from Kafan, the volume that appeared posthumously in 1936), all have been chosen from the eight volumes of Premchand’s collected stories titled Manasarovar, published by Sarasvati Press, Alahabad. The accent is on the later stories, because we felt that these represented Premchand in a more mature and therefore more readable and studyable light than the somewhat un-aut and repetitive earlier stories. Most of Premchand’s political and social themes are covered: the freedom movement, the oppression of Harijans, the exploitation of the Kisan by the moneyed classes, the subjugation of women, the tensions of the joint family. There is a fair sampling of his humour and satire, and one rare example of soaring idealistic fantasy. (The transliteration within parentheses follows the universally accepted system of Romanization of the Devanagari script.)
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