Both in the limited materialistic sense and in its psychosomatic dimensions his short stories and novels often present both in great depth, almost with pathological accuracy. In his carefully crafted, if not frighteningly real, characters and events he captured the late 19th to early 20th century Bengali society. It was his encounters with life as a country youth that provided him with the inspiration, ingredients and storylines for his life-like characters in the (often) uncomplicated rural family settings.

He plucked characters for his stories and novels from his life experience and created them in his own inimitable style. The distinctive features and the essence of purpose that he added to them made them more attractive and perhaps larger than life. This is why his stories had such universal appeal - a reason, which may explain why such a large number of them were translated to other languages.

Although he was working parallel with Rabindranath Tagore in Calcutta - Chatterjee`s work was unique and not overshadowed by Tagore. His best contribution perhaps was the use of simple, unsanskritized and very familiar Bengali vocabulary - a welcome break from the literary tradition of the time. This new wave of de-sanskritization started with Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. Sarat Chandra who had a lot in common with Bankim as they had similar middle class upbringing and shared the same socio-economic background, was greatly influenced by Bankim`s writings. By contrast, the powerful Rabindranath Tagore hardly influenced Sarat Chandra. Sarat Chandra (arguably) did not much appreciate poetry and hence deprived his work a little of the vast wealth of the Tagore literary ocean, which could well have enhanced the texture and depth of his masterpieces.

Sarat Chandra was very popular as a storyteller - more so than either Bankim or Tagore. His sketches on the social canvas had a very subtle reformist twist to them. His critique on social norm was only a message and never an agenda. He refrained from value judgment. He felt that his duty as a writer was to raise awareness about social malice and not to reform the society. Nevertheless, he faced uphill battle with conservative sections of the Hindu social leaders (Pally Samaj). He was not particularly liked either by the Imperial representatives for his Pather Daabi. It was banned for alleged preaching of sedition from 1927 to 1939 and again in 1940 under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code and under the Dramatic Performance Act respectively.

His works have been made into numerous films, particularly Devdas and Parineeta. Including these two, his literary works include the following:

Baradidi, 1907
Bindur Chhele, 1913
Parinita/Parineeta, 1914
Biraj Bou, 1914
Ramer Shumoti, 1914
Palli Shomaj, 1916
Arakhsanya, 1916
Debdas/Devdas, 1917 (written in 1901)
Choritrohin, 1917
Srikanto, (4 parts, 1917, 1918, 1927, 1933)
Datta, 1917-19
Grihodaho, 1919
Dena Paona, 1923
Pother Dabi, 1926
Ses Prasna, 1931.