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Author

Pearl S. Buck

1978–1973

17 fiction · 1 non-fiction

Pearl S. Buck was an American novelist and humanitarian best known for writing about life in China. Born in West Virginia in 1892, she was raised in China by missionary parents and became fluent in both English and Chinese. Her upbringing gave her an unusually close understanding of Chinese society, particularly rural life, family relationships and the cultural tensions created by encounters between China and the West.

Her best-known novel, The Good Earth, follows a farming family through poverty, prosperity and social change in early twentieth-century China. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and became the first volume of the House of Earth trilogy. Buck wrote numerous other novels, biographies and works of non-fiction, and in 1938 she became the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. She also campaigned for civil rights, international understanding and the welfare of mixed-race and Asian children.

Periods and events

Boxer Rebellion1899–1901 CE Chinese Civil War and Communist Revolution1927–1949 CE Early People’s Republic of China1949–1966 CE Great Depression1929–1939 CE Indian Independence Movement1885–1947 CE Interwar Period1918–1939 CE Opium Wars1839–1860 CE Postwar Japan1945–1970 CE Qing Dynasty1644–1912 CE Republican China1912–1949 CE Second Sino-Japanese War1937–1945 CE Taiping Rebellion1850–1864 CE Warlord Era in China1916–1928 CE

Historical fiction

Historical fiction series by Pearl S. Buck (1 series)

The Good Earth Trilogy in Order

by Pearl S. Buck 3 books 4.0(288,271)

The Good Earth Trilogy follows three generations of the Wang family as rural poverty, landownership and sudden wealth reshape their place in a changing China. Beginning with Wang Lung and O-lan's struggle to survive through labour, famine and migration, the sequence traces what happens when the land that…

1. The Good Earth

First published 1931 · 4.0(272,060)

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2. Sons

First published 1932 · 3.9(9,436)

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3. A House Divided

First published 1935 · 4.1(6,775)

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Historical fiction

Standalone historical fiction by Pearl S. Buck (14 books)

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Pearl S. Buck

Periods and events

Historical fiction series by Pearl S. Buck (1 series)

1. The Good Earth

2. Sons

3. A House Divided

Standalone historical fiction by Pearl S. Buck (14 books)

The Living Reed

The Hidden Flower

The Patriot

Letter from Peking

Come, My Beloved

Pavilion of Women

This Proud Heart

Portrait of a Marriage

Imperial Woman

The Mother

Peony

East Wind

The Goddess Abides

Death in the Castle

Non-fiction by Pearl S. Buck (1 book)

A Bridge for Passing

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