Rajmohan's Wife, first serialized in 1864, marked Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's debut as a writer. He went on to write fourteen novels in Bengali, including the epochal Anandamath and the verse 'Vande Mataram', which became the national song of India. The beautiful and passionate Matangini, married to a villainous man and in love with her sister's husband, represents the vitality of women who remain strong in the face of brutality and the confining expectations of middle-class society. Bankimchandra's vivid descriptions of the routine of Bengali households provide a revealing portrait of life in the nineteenth century.