One of the joys of reading is discovering writers who are new to us whose work we quickly discover we enjoy enormously. Although the works of many Bengali authors have especially resonated with me for many years, I had never heard of Sarat Chandra Chatterji. I happened to find a copy of a selection of his works in a used bookstore and was intrigued by the contents: excerpts from his two most famous novels and a selection of short stories. Devdas, probably his best-known work, is a love story about childhood sweethearts. Devdas refuses to marry Parvati when she proposes to him because he is unable to overcome his parents’ objections. They go their separate ways but the self-destructive Devdas spends the rest of his (often dissipated) life, regretting his decision. He develops a relationship with another woman but is unable to forget Parvati and continues making poor choices, eventually returning one last time to see her in as heart-breaking a final scene as I can recall. The story has been the subject of nearly two dozen film versions throughout India (beginning in 1928 as a silent film and continuing up through 2019) and is said to be the most filmed non-epic story in Indian history. Given the uniformly high quality of his writing in the two novels contained here as well as the several stories, I can only wonder how sad it is that his name is so little known in the West. ( )