The Nobel Prize–winning author’s perceptive fable of cross-cultural passions in nineteenth-century China In 1850s China, a young girl, Peony, is sold to work as a bondmaid for a rich Jewish family in Kaifeng. Jews have lived for centuries in this region of the country, but by the mid-nineteenth century, assimilation has begun taking its toll on their small enclave. When Peony and the family’s son, David, grow up and fall in love with one another, they face strong opposition from every side. Tradition forbids the marriage, and the family already has a rabbi’s daughter in mind for David. Long celebrated for its subtle and even-handed treatment of colliding traditions, Peony is an engaging coming-of-age story about love, identity, and the tragedy and beauty found at the intersection of two disparate cultures.    This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

An illustrated treasury of stories for kids, including two Christmas tales, from the beloved Pulitzer and Nobel Prize–winning author of The Good Earth. This collection of more than twenty stories brings readers back to the timeless fascinations of childhood—thunderstorms and star-filled skies, rabbits and rosebushes—and journeys into the larger world we discover as we grow older, learning about foreign languages and different cultures, or responsibilities like caring for an elderly grandparent. It also includes two Christmas classics, as well as a humorous tale of how cats and dogs came to dislike each other. Divided into sections for both little children and bigger ones, A Gift for the Children is a joy in any season, whether you're reading out loud at bedtime or encouraging kids to read on their own. From the New York Times–bestselling author famed for her travels and adventures, particularly in China,...

The exhilarating novel of an elegant woman’s subversive new chapter in life At forty, Madame Wu is beautiful and much respected as the wife of one of China’s oldest upper-class houses. Her birthday wish is to find a young concubine for her husband and to move to separate quarters, starting a new chapter of her life. When her wish is granted, she finds herself at leisure, no longer consumed by running a sixty-person household. Now she’s free to read books previously forbidden her, to learn English, and to discover her own mind. The family in the compound are shocked at the results, especially when she begins learning from a progressive, excommunicated Catholic priest. In its depiction of life in the compound, Pavilion of Women includes some of Buck’s most enchanting writing about the seasons, daily rhythms, and customs of women in China. It is a delightful parable about the sexes, and of the profound and transformative effects of free thought. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

“Buck has never done better work than this. By a great gift of intuition she has entered into the mind, heart and spirit of the Chinese peasant woman and revealed the permanent values of life.” —The *Times Literary Supplement* Dickensian in its epic sweep, one of Buck’s finest novels centers on an unnamed peasant woman in pre-revolutionary China. Without warning, her restless husband abandons her. Shamed by the experience, she is left to work the land, raise their three children on her own, and care for her aging mother-in-law. To save face with her neighbors, she pretends her husband is traveling, and sends letters to herself signed in his name. Surrounded by poverty, despair, and a growing web of lies meant to protect the family, her children grow up and enter society with only the support of their mother’s unbreakable will. An unforgettable story of one woman’s strength and a remarkable fable about the role of mothers, this novel is a powerful achievement by a master of twentieth-century fiction. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

The second installment in Pearl S. Buck’s acclaimed Good Earth trilogy: the powerful story of three brothers whose greed will bring their family to the brink of ruin Sons begins where The Good Earth ended: Revolution is sweeping through China. Wang Lung is on his deathbed in the house of his fathers, and his three sons stand ready to inherit his hard-won estate. One son has taken the family’s wealth for granted and become a landlord; another is a thriving merchant and moneylender; the youngest, an ambitious general, is destined to be a leader in the country. Through all his life’s changes, Wang did not anticipate that each son would hunger to sell his beloved land for maximum profit. At once a tribute to early Chinese fiction, a saga of family dissension, and a depiction of the clashes between old and new, Sons is a vivid and compelling masterwork of fiction.   This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

The conclusion to Buck’s celebrated Good Earth trilogy: the story of a man’s return to a homeland embroiled in revolutionOn the eve of a popular rebellion, the Chinese government starts to crack down in cities across the country. Fleeing the turmoil, Wang Yuan, the son of a famous general and grandson of the patriarch of The Good Earth, leaves for America to study agriculture. When he returns to China six years later, he encounters a nation still in the grip of violent uprisings. Unprepared for the social upheaval, Wang is torn by the tensions between old traditions and new ways, and by his formidable family, whose struggles he hopes to solve. A reflective finale to Buck’s groundbreaking and bestselling trilogy, A House Divided is a rich and unforgettable portrait of a family—and a nation—in transition. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

Pearl S. Buck's absorbing and candid chronicle of her experience making a movie in 1960s Japan, while surviving the loss of her beloved husbandPearl S. Buck's children's story, The Big Wave, about two young friends whose lives are transformed when a volcano erupts and a tidal wave engulfs their village, was eventually optioned as a movie. A Bridge for Passing narrates the resulting adventure, the story of the people involved in the movie-making process (including Polish director Tad Danielewski), their many complications while shooting, and the experience of working in Japan at a time when memories of the war remained strong. As much as all this, the book is a poignant reflection on personal crisis, and relates Buck's grief over the death of her husband of twenty-five years, Richard Walsh, who was also her editor. A Bridge for Passing offers an intimate view of postwar Japan mixed with Buck's heartrending meditation on loss and love. This ebook features an illustrated biography...

The stormy tale of a wife trapped in the antiquated ways of the past, and of two brothers who have fought on opposing sides of the Civil WarLucinda Delaney is a southern belle ruled by a vision of life that no longer exists. The Civil War has come and gone and her side has lost, yet she is determined to proceed as if nothing has changed—a denial that stokes the flames of her irrational angers. Despite her returned husband's devotion, Lucinda is sure he is having an affair with one of their slaves. After all, his Union-sympathizing brother, Tom, did just that, scandalously running away with the woman and settling into contented family life in Philadelphia. Over the years, her racist feelings and fears only intensify, and when it's time for her own daughter to marry, her chief concern is the color of the children. The Angry Wife is a memorable and impassioned dissection of prejudice, as well as a riveting portrait of post­–Civil War America. This ebook features an...

Nobel winner Pearl S. Buck’s classic debut novel, about one Chinese woman’s coming of age as she’s torn between Eastern and Western culturesKwei-lan is a traditional Chinese girl—taught by her mother to submit in all things, “as a flower submits to sun and rain alike.” Her marriage was arranged before she was born. As she approaches her wedding day, she’s surprised by one aspect of her anticipated life: Her husband-to-be has been educated abroad and follows many Western ideas that Kwei-lan was raised to reject. When circumstances push the couple out of the family home, Kwei-lan finds her assumptions about tradition and modernity tested even further. East Wind: West Wind is a sensitive, early exploration of the cross-cultural themes that went on to become a hallmark of Buck’s acclaimed novels. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

An enthralling tale, divided between China and America, of two friends inspired by radically opposed idealsThis deeply felt novel tells the story of William Lane and Clem Miller, Americans who meet in China as youths at the end of the nineteenth century. Separated by the Boxer Rebellion, they're destined to travel wildly different courses in life. From a background of wealth and privilege, William becomes a power-hungry and controlling media magnate. By contrast, Clem, whose family survived on charity growing up, is engrossed by a project—which he works on ceaselessly, perhaps naively, together with his chemist wife—to eliminate world poverty. The two wind up in America and meet again, each successful in his own area, and as similar in their intensity as they are different in their values. God's Men is a rich and layered portrayal of lives set alight by ambition. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author's estate.

Pearl S. Buck’s groundbreaking memoir, hailed by James Michener as “spiritually moving,” about raising a child with a rare developmental disorder The Child Who Never Grew is Buck’s candid memoir of her relationship with her oldest daughter, who was born with a rare type of mental retardation. A forerunner of its kind, the memoir was published in 1950 and helped demolish the cruel taboos surrounding learning disabilities. Buck describes life with her daughter, Carol, whose special needs led Buck to send her to one of the best schools for disabled children in the United States—which she paid for in part by writing The Good Earth, her multimillion-selling classic novel. Brave and touching, The Child Who Never Grew is a heartrending memoir of parenting. As Buck writes, “I learned respect and reverence for every human mind. It was my child who taught me to understand so clearly that all people are equal in their humanity and that all have the same human rights.” This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.