(i) Many people got worried about the effects of the novel on readers who were taken away from their real surroundings into an imaginary world where anything could happen. Women and children were advised not to read novels as they were seen as easily corruptible. (ii) Some parents kept novels in the lofts of their houses, out of their children’s reach. Young people often read them in secret. This passion was not limited only to the youth. Older women-some of whom could not read— listened with fascinated attention to popular Tamil novels read out to them by their grandchildren. (iii) But women did not remain mere readers of stories written by men. Soon they also began to write novels. (iv) 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. Some women authors also wrote about women who changed the world of both men and women. (v) Rokeya Hossein (1880-1932) in Sultana’s Dream (1905) showed a topsyturvy world in which women take the place of men. Her novel, Padmarag also showed the need for women to reform their condition by their own actions. (vi) Hannah Mullens, a Christian missionary and the author of Karunao Phulmonir Bibaran (1852), reputedly the first novel in Bengali, tells her readers that she wrote in secret. (vii) In the twentieth century, Sailabala Ghosh Jaya, a popular novelist, could only write because her husband protected her. As we have seen in the case of the south, women and girls were often discouraged from reading novels.