When Dwarakanath Tagore died on 1 August 1846, Jorasanko found itself rattled by a series of upheavals. In each of these episodes, the chief player was his son—and Rabindranath Tagore’s father—Debendranath Tagore. He was a social reformer who founded the Brahmo Dharma. Yet, despite his deeply spiritual nature, he dabbled in crass materialistic matters. Drawing upon Debendranath’s opposing sentiments, Tagores Before Tagore chronicles tales of bankruptcy, litigations, deceit, and domestic squabbles abound, and through these tales emerges a rich cultural history of nineteenth-century Bengal.