Lal Behari Day

Lal Behari Day (1824–1892) was a Bengali writer, journalist and Christian minister. Born in a village in Burdwan district and educated at the Scottish mission school of Alexander Duff in Calcutta, he converted to Christianity in 1843, was ordained in the Free Church of Scotland and worked as a missionary before becoming professor of English at Hooghly College. His novel Govinda Samanta, published in 1874 and later retitled Bengal Peasant Life, was the first realistic account in English of the Bengali village, and his Folk-Tales of Bengal (1883) preserved stories he had heard from village women. He also edited the Bengal Magazine and wrote on religion and society.