One of Mukhopadhyay's first projects was an English translation of her aunt
Swarnakumari Devi's Bengali novel
Kahake? After this, Mukhopadhyay became interested in recording local oral traditions and folktales.
The Orient Pearls (1915) The Orient Pearls: Indian Folklore contains twenty-eight folktales, gathered by Mukhopadhyay herself, some from family servants.
The Orient Pearls was reviewed in publications such as
The Dial and
The Spectator and appeared in libraries around the world shortly after its publication. The book brought Bengali folktales to the attention of English-speaking folklorists around the world, who used it as a source in their comparative work, including new forms of computer-aided study. Her stories have been republished in recent academic collections of the writings of Indian women. Some scholars have positioned Mukhopadhyay's work as similar in method and tone to British colonial
ethnography. Others describe its similarity to other
Victorian short story collections produced in India and elsewhere, filled with subtle ideas about
social reform, or as demonstrative of the complex sociopolitical circumstances of translating folktales into the colonizer's language. Others view her interest in local culture as a precursor to Indian
nationalism. Another scholar argues that Tagore's preface acknowledges the constrained position of a female author.
Later works Mukhopadhyay published four books on Indian folklore, religion, culture, and myths for the London-based publishing firm
Macmillan between 1915 and 1920. In
Indian Fables and Folk-lore (1919) and
The Tales of the Gods of India (1920), she includes information on her source material for the stories, something she had not previously done. == Works ==