Folktales from Northern India

The first single volume collection of classic Hindi folktales by translators William Crooke and Pandit Ram Gharib Chaube.

In 1891, at a time when the study of India was primarily based on ancient texts, coins, and material remains, William Crooke dared to focus on living India—its everyday culture, age-old customs, and fictional narratives. With Pandit Ram Gharib Chaube, he recorded and published, over a period of six years, a remarkable collection of folktales from northern India.

The tales reflect the tapestry of social and personal lives of this region, the epicenter of a revolt against British rule in 1857. Although many of the tales were published in British ethnographic journals, a number of the manuscripts, in Chaube's handwriting, were unpublished; others existed only as old microfilm in a New Delhi library. Never before have they appeared as a single volume or been available in any one library or archive.



Includes the original versions of over 350 Indian folktales collected in colonial India during the 1890s

Introduction by Sadhana Naithani provides an overview of William Crooke's methodology and translation practices