The Good Earth.

BUCK, Pearl S.

$4,000.00

Item Number: 143999

New York: The John Day Company, 1931.

First edition of the author’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and masterpiece. First issue with “flees” for “fleas” on page 100, line 17. Octavo, bound in full morocco by the Harcourt Bindery, gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt inner dentelles stamp-signed by the Harcourt Bindery, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on a page bound in, “To Kermit and Helen Fischer with deep appreciation, Pearl S. Buck Christmas 1958.” In fine condition.

Over eighty years have passed since The Good Earth won the Pulitzer Prize, it has retained its popularity and become one of the great modern classics. "I can only write what I know, and I know nothing but China, having always lived there," wrote Pearl Buck. In The Good Earth she presents a graphic view of a China when the last emperor reigned and the vast political and social upheavals of the twentieth century were but distant rumblings for the ordinary people. This moving, classic story of the honest farmer Wang Lung and his selfless wife O-lan is must reading for those who want to fully appreciate the sweeping changes that have occurred in the lives of the Chinese people during this century.