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In November 1912 the India Society in London published a slim book of 103 prose poems, translated into English by a Bengali poet from his own work, with an introduction by W. B. Yeats. A year later Rabindranath Tagore, born in Calcutta in 1861, became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The English Gitanjali was only a small part of what he wrote. In Bengali he published poetry, eight novels and four novellas, 84 stories collected in Galpaguchchha, plays, essays and some 2,230 songs, two of which are now the national anthems of India and Bangladesh. He took up painting at about sixty and founded a school, and later a university, at Santiniketan. This guide covers his 11 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 1900–1934 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Rabindranath Tagore’s best-known books are Gitanjali (Bengali 1910; English Song Offerings, 1912), the novels Gora (1910) and The Home and the World (Ghare Baire, 1916), the play The Post Office (Dak Ghar, 1912) and his short stories, collected in Galpaguchchha. Start with Gitanjali, the book that won him the Nobel Prize in 1913; below you will find the Bengali titles, the order, and where to go next.
Where to Start with Rabindranath Tagore
If you want the book that made him famous
→ Gitanjali (1910) — the English Song Offerings of 1912.
If you want a novel
→ The Home and the World (1916) — a marriage tested by the Swadeshi movement.
If you want short fiction
→ Galpaguchchha (1900) — “The Postmaster”, “Kabuliwala” and more.
If you want something short to read in one sitting
→ The Post Office (1912).
11 Rabindranath Tagore Books, in Order
Galpaguchchha
Tagore’s short stories, first gathered under this title in 1900 and later expanded to 84 stories in three volumes. Among them are “The Postmaster” (1891), “Kabuliwala” (1892), about a fruit seller from Afghanistan and a little girl in Calcutta, and the ghost story “The Hungry Stones” (1895). Satyajit Ray filmed three of the stories as Teen Kanya (1961). In English they are best found in selections such as William Radice’s Selected Short Stories (1991).
The Broken Nest
Set among a wealthy, liberal Calcutta family in the late nineteenth century. Bhupati, a man of liberal views, does not notice that his wife Charu is lonely, until his young cousin Amal awakens feelings in her that she cannot undo. Scholars link the story to Tagore’s own closeness to his sister-in-law Kadambari Devi. Satyajit Ray adapted it as Charulata (1964).
Chokher Bali
Binodini, a young widow, comes into the household of Mahendra, an old suitor of hers, and his wife Asha. Her affair with Mahendra and her feelings for his friend Behari drive the novel, which looks hard at the lives Bengali society allowed widows. It was serialised in Bangadarshan before appearing as a book in 1903, and filmed by Rituparno Ghosh in 2003.
Gora
Gora, a fervent young Hindu nationalist in 1880s Calcutta, forbids his friend Binoy to visit the Brahmo household of Paresh Babu, then falls in love with Paresh Babu’s adopted daughter Sucharita. On his deathbed Gora’s foster father reveals that Gora was born to an Irish father, which undoes everything he has built his identity on. The novel deals with caste, religion and what it means to be Indian; an English translation appeared in 1924.
Gitanjali
The Bengali Gitanjali of 1910 has 157 poems, many of them songs. The English Gitanjali: Song Offerings (India Society, London, November 1912) is a different book: 103 prose poems Tagore translated himself, freely, from this and other collections, with an introduction by W. B. Yeats. It includes “Where the mind is without fear”. The Nobel Prize of 1913 rested largely on this English volume.
The Post Office
Amal, a boy confined indoors by an illness no one can cure, talks to the people who pass his window and dreams of receiving a letter from the King from the new post office across the road. Tagore wrote it in four days. It was staged in English at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1913, and on 18 July 1942 the children of Janusz Korczak’s orphanage performed it in the Warsaw Ghetto, weeks before they were deported to Treblinka.
The Home and the World
During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, Bimala, wife of the gentle, rational landowner Nikhil, is drawn out of the inner rooms of the house by his friend Sandip, a charismatic nationalist, and steals 6,000 rupees for the cause. It was translated into English in 1919 and filmed by Satyajit Ray as Ghare Baire (1984).
Nationalism
Three essays, “Nationalism in the West”, “Nationalism in Japan” and “Nationalism in India”, drawn from lectures he gave in Japan and the United States in 1916–17. Written during the First World War, they warn against the nation-state and the nationalism of his time, in India as well as in the West.
Red Oleanders
In the town of Yakshapuri a greedy king forces his subjects to mine gold. Nandini, the young heroine, rallies the workers against the sardars who rule over them. The play appeared in Bengali in 1924 and in Tagore’s own English version in 1925.
Farewell Song
Amit Ray, an Oxford-educated Calcutta barrister who cares mostly about literature, meets the governess Labanya after a small car accident in Shillong. Their romance unfolds in conversation and in poems written to each other, and in the end both choose to marry other people. Amit mocks an old poet called “Rabi Thakur”, Tagore himself, then 67. Also translated as The Last Poem and Farewell, My Friend.
Four Chapters
A short late novel, in four chapters, about Ela and Atin, young members of a secret revolutionary group in Bengal, and what loyalty to the cause costs their love. Like The Home and the World it is wary of political violence. Kumar Shahani filmed it in Hindi in 1997.
In What Order to Read Rabindranath Tagore
None of Tagore’s books continue from one another, so you can read by form. The order matters in a different way: the early stories and The Broken Nest come from the 1890s and 1900s, when he was writing about the households and villages of Bengal; the big political novels, Gora and The Home and the World, belong to the years around the Swadeshi movement; the late novels and plays are shorter and stranger.
Translation matters more than order. Tagore’s own English versions, such as Song Offerings, are loose and often quite different from the Bengali, and many readers now prefer newer translations of the fiction, such as Radha Chakravarty’s Gora (2009) and Farewell Song.
A reading path
1. Gitanjali (1910; English 1912)
2. Short stories from Galpaguchchha (1900)
3. The Post Office (1912)
4. The Home and the World (1916)
5. Gora (1910)
Everything Else Rabindranath Tagore Published
Beyond the 11 key books: 16 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Poetry
6
6 books · 1890–1916
- 1890Manasian early collection; title often given as The Heart’s Desire
- 1901NaibedyaOfferings; some poems later went into Song Offerings
- 1913The Gardenerhis English versions of love poems from several Bengali books
- 1913The Crescent Moon40 poems about childhood, in English
- 1916BalakaA Flight of Swans
- 1916Stray Birds325 short epigrams in English
Novels and plays
5
5 books · 1890–1929
- 1890VisarjanSacrifice, a play adapted from his novel Rajarshi
- 1906NoukadubiThe Wreck, a novel
- 1910RajaThe King of the Dark Chamber, a play
- 1916ChaturangaQuartet, a novel
- 1929JogajogRelationships, a novel
Essays, lectures and memoirs
5
5 books · 1913–1941
- 1913Sadhana: The Realisation of Lifelectures on Indian thought, in English
- 1917My Reminiscencesthe English version of Jibansmriti, his memoir of his early life
- 1931The Religion of Manhis Hibbert Lectures of 1930, with his conversation with Einstein
- 1931Letters from RussiaRussiar Chithi, from his 1930 visit
- 1941Crisis in CivilizationSabhyatar Sankat, his last public address
The years · 1861–1941
Quick facts about Rabindranath Tagore
- Known for
- The Bengali poems and songs that made him, in 1913, the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, two of which became the national anthems of India and Bangladesh
- 1861
- Born at Jorasanko, Calcutta
- 1910
- Gitanjali
- 1919
- Renounces his knighthood
- 1941
- Dies in Calcutta, aged 80
- Born
- 7 May 1861, Jorasanko, Calcutta, the youngest of 13 surviving children
- Died
- 7 August 1941, in the Jorasanko house where he grew up
- Language
- Bengali; he translated some of his own work into English
- Nobel Prize
- Literature, 1913, the first awarded to a non-European
- Songs
- Some 2,230, known as Rabindra Sangeet, including the anthems of India and Bangladesh
- Founded
- A school at Santiniketan (1901), which became Visva-Bharati University (1921)
- Painting
- Took up drawing and painting at about 60
The red mark is 1910: the Bengali Gitanjali, whose English version brought him the Nobel Prize three years later.
How Rabindranath Tagore Writes: Bengali First
Tagore wrote in Bengali, and much of his work was meant to be sung: about 2,230 of his poems are songs with his own melodies. He also helped move Bengali writing away from the classical, Sanskrit-based literary language towards the language people spoke, and he wrote short stories from 1877, when “Bhikharini” appeared, until the year he died.
His English reputation rests on a different body of work: the loose prose versions he made himself, starting with Song Offerings in 1912. These often cut or changed large parts of the originals, and sometimes merged two poems into one. The Nobel committee praised verse “expressed in his own English words”, but Yeats later turned against the translations, and readers such as Amartya Sen have argued that they give a thin idea of the Bengali poet.
The fiction is more concrete than the mystic image suggests. The novels are set in specific Bengali households and argue about specific things: the place of widows and wives (Chokher Bali, The Broken Nest), caste and religious identity (Gora) and the risks of nationalism (The Home and the World, Four Chapters). His women characters, Charu, Binodini, Bimala, Labanya, are usually at the centre.
Frequently asked questions about Rabindranath Tagore’s books
How many books has Rabindranath Tagore written?
Far too many to count as single titles: his collected works in Bengali run to about 80 volumes, with poetry, eight novels and four novellas, 84 short stories, plays, essays and some 2,230 songs. This page covers 11 key books, from Galpaguchchha (1900) to Four Chapters (1934), and lists other important titles below them.
What are Rabindranath Tagore’s books in order?
The key books are Galpaguchchha (stories, 1900), The Broken Nest (Nastanirh, 1901), Chokher Bali (1903), Gora (1910), Gitanjali (1910; English 1912), The Post Office (Dak Ghar, 1912), The Home and the World (Ghare Baire, 1916), Nationalism (1917), Red Oleanders (Raktakarabi, 1924), Farewell Song (Shesher Kobita, 1929) and Four Chapters (Char Adhyay, 1934).
Where should I start with Rabindranath Tagore?
With Gitanjali, the English Song Offerings of 1912 that won him the Nobel Prize. If you prefer fiction, start with the short stories, such as “The Postmaster” and “Kabuliwala”, or with the novel The Home and the World.
What is Rabindranath Tagore’s most famous book?
Gitanjali. The Bengali collection appeared in 1910 and his own English version, Gitanjali: Song Offerings, in 1912, with an introduction by W. B. Yeats. In India his songs, including “Jana Gana Mana”, are at least as well known.
Why did Tagore win the Nobel Prize?
The Swedish Academy gave him the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature for his “profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse”, written in his own English words. The prize rested mainly on the English Gitanjali. He was the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize.
Did Tagore write the national anthems of India and Bangladesh?
Yes. “Jana Gana Mana”, first sung at the Indian National Congress in Calcutta in 1911, was adopted by India in 1950, and “Amar Shonar Bangla” by Bangladesh in 1971. Sri Lanka’s anthem is often described as inspired by his work, but he did not write it.
Why did Tagore give up his knighthood?
He was knighted in 1915 and renounced the title in 1919 in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, writing to the Viceroy that “the time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation.”
Did Tagore and Gandhi disagree?
Often, and in public, although they respected each other. Tagore was critical of parts of Gandhi’s non-cooperation campaign and of the spinning wheel as a national programme, and in 1934 he rebuked Gandhi for calling the Bihar earthquake a divine punishment for untouchability. His English translations were also debated: Yeats, his early champion, later disparaged them in private.
Which films are based on Tagore’s books?
Satyajit Ray filmed three stories as Teen Kanya (1961), The Broken Nest as Charulata (1964) and The Home and the World as Ghare Baire (1984). Rituparno Ghosh filmed Chokher Bali (2003), Tapan Sinha made Kabuliwala (1957) and Kumar Shahani made Char Adhyay (1997).
What happened to Tagore’s Nobel medal?
It was stolen from a vault at Visva-Bharati University on 25 March 2004. In December 2004 the Swedish Academy gave the university a gold and a bronze replica.
Footnotes
- Rabindranath Tagore — Wikipedia
- List of works by Rabindranath Tagore — Wikipedia
- Rabindranath Tagore: Bibliography — NobelPrize.org
- Song Offerings — Wikipedia
- The Home and the World — Wikipedia
- Janusz Korczak — Institute of National Remembrance (IPN)
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free;”
— Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912), poem 35
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