Sharatchandra wrote the novel when he was only 24 years old in the year 1900 AD. It first appeared in the journal The Bharatbarsha, then brought out as a book on 30th June, 1917 by Gurudas Chatterjee and Sons. At the time of writing the novel, the writer was very much upset with his personal life after he lost his childhood lover. Most of the characters in this novel are very much akin to that of the family members and belong to his uncle. Even the housekeepers are akin to the characters of this novel. Dharmads in Devdas and represents Musai, the housekeeper. Truthful housekeeper like Musai would be a rare one. Musai who came from Gaya was serving as a houekeeper for the last 30 years at the house of Devadas’s uncle. The Bengali novelist wanted to portray Musai as an immortal man so that he can depict the character of Dharmadas as Musai. While the writer was very young he made a good friendship with a minor girl just neighbour to him. The girl helped him out when he smoked secretly. As they grew up, their friendship turned to a bond of love. The writer also compares the status of the two families with the real and the imagined life. While Sharatchandra was living in penury, on the other hand the girl whom he loved was very rich. In the novel, the hero is depicted as a son of a Zamindar and Parbati, the heroine is depicted as a poor Brahmin girl. Devadas’ father despises Parabati’s family status and never wanted Parbati to marry to his son. Nilakantha, the father of Parbati is proud of his daughter's beauty and he quickly engaged his daughter to a Zamindar from Hatipota in Bardhaman district to marry her daughter. At her father proposal, Parbati became quite upset and on one night she comes to Devadas’ room and proposes him for elopement. Due to his naivety Devadas could never accept the proposal. Besides this, he runs away from home. Later on he sends a letter to Parbati telling her his volition to forget him. The letter poisons Parbati so much that she happily accepts the engagement to Bhubon Choudhury, the affluent man from Hatipota.

In real life, Sharatchandra was quite distressed after the lost of his lover, neighbour to him. Time and again he alowgwith one of his rich friend visited the house of a fallen woman for listening songs sung by her. One day they were quite ignorant that they’d slipped a bundle of money after a heavy dose of alcohol. On the following day when they visited the woman again they realized that the woman had found the money and she handed the money to them. After this incident Sharatchandra realized the truthful manner of a fallen woman. So he depicts Chandramukhi representing that woman. Chandramukhi could draw sympathy from the readers. She really loves Devadas, the forlorn lad. We the Manipuris could never forget the dialogue in the Manipuri Shumang Lila ‘Devadas’ (the play staged on the open spaces of the courtyard) in which Chunibabu spoke, ‘Ngasi Chandramu-khina Lupa Pamdraba… (Chandra-mukhi dislikes money today…’ What Chandramukhi wanted is money, Devadas thinks so. He asks Chandramukhi not to drink wine and offered lot of money to her. Chandramukhi has lost her heart on money and asks Chunibabu to return all the money to Devadas. The tragic episode of the last chapter is very stocking to visualize. Sharatchandra never regarded this novel as his masterpiece. It would be the Romeo-Juliet type. Sharatchandra himself said, ‘it is no good. It’s even obscene and many other things besides you must ignore it as I have written it when I was a novice’. We could see much improvement in Raghumani’s work of translation. The language in Manipuri is quite better than those of the earlier edition.