(i) Beginning of the novels:- The modern novel form developed in India in the nineteenth century, as Indians became familiar with the Western novel. The development of the vernaculars, print and a reading public helped in this process. (ii) Earliest Novels : Some of the earliest Indian novels were written in Bengali and Marathi. The earliest novel in Marathi was Baba Padmanji’s Yamuna Paryatan (1857), which used a simple style of storytelling to speak about the plight of widows. This was followed by Lakshman Moreshwar Halbe’s Muktamala (1861). This was not a realistic novel; it presented an imaginary ‘romance’ narrative with a moral purpose. (iii) Colonial period and novels : Novels began appearing in south Indian languages during the period of colonial rule. Quite a few early novels came out of attempts to translate English novels into Indian languages. For example, 0. Chandu Menon, a subjudge from Malabar, tried to translate an English novel called Henrietta Temple written by Benjamin Disraeli into Malayalam. But he quickly realised that his readers in Kerala were not familiar with the way in which the characters in English novels lived. So, he gave up this idea and wrote a delightful novel called Indulekha, which published in 1889 and, was the first modem novel in Malayalam. (iv) First Hindi novel : Many novels were actually translated and adapted from English and Bengali, but the first proper modern novel i.e. Pariksha Guru was written by Srinivas Das of Delhi.