Periodicals, Readers and the Making of a Modern Literary Culture

In the decades between the 1870s and 1920s, literary periodicals (sahitya patrika), much like the newspapers and the books, became popular among the middle-class Bengali homes both as an affordable recreation for leisure hours, and as a major vehicle for the circulation of ideas in the public domain. Periodicals, Readers and the Making of a Modern Literary Culture: Bengal at the Turn of the Twentieth Century begins by looking at the logistics of the production and circulation of periodicals that were oriented towards a widening readership market. Given their easily understood nature, their capacity for sustaining debates and adaptability by readers with diverse reading competencies, periodicals became the preferred means for dispensing modern education and enjoyment through the vernacular.