'Kaguje Singhi' : Margaret Noble / Rajagopal Chattopadhyaya

The preface of this Bengali book describing a critical biography of Margaret Noble (1867-1911), also known as Sister Nivedita, is given completely as IMAGES here. In 24 chapters, it goes through the most important phases of her life in Bengali. English biographies such as those by Reymond-Herbert, 'The Dedicated', first published in 1953, and Pravrajika Atmaprana, 'Sister Nivedita' (1961), books written by Sister Nivedita herself and 'Letters of Sister Nivedita' (1982) are used as sources. However the most important biographical sources are in Bengali are Pravrajika Muktiprana's 'Bhagini Nivedita' (1959) and Sankariprasad Basu's 'Lokmata Nivedita' in 4 volumes. In each phase of her life, there exist contradictions between the various biographers. THESE ARE RESOLVED using common sense and her own letters. The title has the word-pair 'Kaguje Singhi', meaning 'Paper Lioness', and it fits her life and character in four ways, as explained in the preface. The book has 376 pages of text and 96 pages of illustrations (both colour and b/w) on art paper, or 472 total pages, relating to her life. Hardcover, contains many colour paintings about England of the 1880s and 1890s, and photographs of persons associated with her life never published before in any biography of Margaret. The orphanage she went to still exists in Halifax and is also included through photos.