AN INTERPRETATION OF THE RISE OF PROSE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY 43 and prose and lyrical poetry. It has been a varied and strong literary tradition. Ill Yet in a span of two decades, from 1851 -70, anew epoch and anew canon took over. This phenomenon was greeted with unmistakable enthusiasm and respect by Gujarati authors, critics, and readers of the period. Major literary and cultural events of the two decades from 1851 were the following: Composition of the first Gujarati essay, "Maniall Malvathi thata Labh" ("The Advantages of Forming Forums" for social reforms) in 1851 by the pioneer of Gujarati prose, Narmadashankar Lalshankar Dave; composition of the first Gujarati novel, Karan Ghelo, by Nandashankar Mehta in 1866 and its publication in 1868; publication (inarestrictededitionofaboutfivecopies)ofNarmadashankafs autobiography, Man Hakikatin 1866; composition of the personal diary Nityanondh in 1840s by Durgaram Mahetaji, a pioneering reformer and teacher, mdRojmshi, from 1861 to 1882 by BholanSth Sarabhai, though published only in 1888 and in part; publication in Sdldpatra, the journal of the regional Board of Education, of essays of literary criticism and other prose writings by the pioneering critic NavalrSmPandyS.from 1850. Navalram'sforcefulandcandidprose helped setnew standards for authors and readers. These essays were later collected in Navalgranthavall in 1891. The first comprehensive work on Gujarati prosody, Dalpat Pingal, by the popular yet pioneering poet Dalpatram, was published in 1862. Several travelogues were published in Gujarati in this period. A variety of prose styles and of mental attitudes are discernible in them. A sense of freedom, both of expression and of experience, was offered by this prose genre which had not yet accumulated any compulsions of a tradition of writing in Gujarati and which was, along with journalism, on the fringes of "literature." In 1861 Dosabhai Karaka, a Parsi gentleman, wrote his Garet Baritanm Musaphan. In 1864 another Parsi gentleman anonymously woteEkParslGharahasthamAmericamMusaphan. Apart from Great Britain and America, Gujarati men and at least one woman went to and wrote about other parts of Europe, and other places like South India, Iran, China, and Japan. The woman was^r natiYejrincess, H.E. Nandakuvarba ofGondal, whose Gomandal Parikrama (1902) squarely criticises Europe on many counts. This genre seems, above all, to have opened up the pleasure of "writing your own prose" to many Gujaratis—Hindu, Parsi, Muslim, men and women alike. A separation of the beauty of the product and the pleasure of production seems to havebeen accepted by the Gujarati-speaking people then, as never before. This brings us to another related aspect of the same phenomenon Journalism and printing. Reviewing Gujarati literatureofthepast six decades in 1911, a critic noted that in a relatively short span of fifty years, from 1817 to 1867, as many as seventy-eight printing presses were started in Gujarat. He also lists ninety-four newspapers and socio-literary journals which began publication between 1831 and 1886 (DerSsari 1911). The socio-political events of the time are as follows. In 1814 the British defeated