Preface - The recent appearance of an English version of the well-known Tales of Tennali Rama, and the fact that that work has already reached a second edition, has induced the translator to make an attempt at preserving and presenting to the foreign reader this interesting batch of equally popular tales.
Whether such a prodigy of judicial and detective acumen, as Mariada Ramanna is depicted, really existed or whether the character is only the creation of a luxuriant brain, like Sir Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, "deponent sayeth not," but the tales will be found to display on the part of the hero, illimitable resource in the art of detection, a profound insight into human nature, and a remarkable perspicacity in the unravelling of the truth.
They are also not devoid of interest as affording the foreign reader a peep into the inner life and customs of the Hindus in Southern India.
Some of these tales at all events, may help to provoke a hearty laugh, and to laugh now and then, we are somewhere told, is good and wholesome for us all.