Mary Frere

Mary Eliza Isabella Frere (1845–1911) (nickname May) was an English author of works regarding India. In 1868 Frere published the first English-language field-collected book of Indian storytales, Old Deccan Days.

Frere was born at the rectory of Bitton in Gloucestershire, England on 11 August 1845. Nicknamed May, she was the eldest of five children (the others being Catherine, Georgina, Eliza and Bartle) of Henry Bartle Frere and his wife Catherine (died 1899) who was the daughter of Lieutenant-General Sir George Arthur, 1st Baronet. Mary's father had served in the colonial administration of Bombay since 1834, and in 1862 he was appointed Governor of Bombay. The family lived in the Parish of St Mary, Wimbledon, where Mary was privately educated.

Frere published several poems and a play. Her most popular work was Old Deccan Days; or, Hindoo Fairy Legends, Current in Southern India. Collected From Oral Tradition, printed in 1868, with illustrations by her sister Catherine Frances Frere. According to Frere's introduction, she began her collection of Indian folklore during long travels with her father. Her only female companion was a local ayah named Anna Liberata de Souza. She was a Christian descendant of the Lingaet caste from the Mahratta country. What started as an idle conversation evolved into a thorough recording and study of Indian culture. German orientologist Max Müller reviewed Frere's collection and wrote that her rendition of Sanskrit originals read like a direct translation of ancient Sanskrit. Frere's father assisted with the editing of the work and wrote an introduction to the first edition of Old Deccan Days. The extensive background and 'Narrator's Narrative' supplied in the work is unusual for the period, placing the tales in the context of the difficult life of the teller. The book was a success; by the time of the third English edition (1881) it was printed in German, Hungarian, Danish, Marathi, Hindi and Gujarati languages. The book was republished with an introduction by Kirin Narayan in 2002.

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