The Good Earth
Pearl S. Buck, 1931
BUCK, Pearl S. (1892-1973). The Good Earth. New York: The John Day Company, 1931.

Presentation copy of the first edition of Buck's classic, with an additional lengthy letter reflecting on her work. Inscribed and signed on the half-title: "For Florence G. Tyler / Pearl S. Buck (gratefully inscribed)." Laid in is a three-page autograph letter signed to Tyler whose letter was chosen "out of a heap that came in the last mail, because it is such a delightful and generous one and it means very much to me." Buck expands on her motivation for writing The Good Earth: "putting China into people's minds as the great, persistent, horrible, marvelous, and most beautiful in [the] world, the most human. If our people cannot see this China that is at once the greatest menace and the greatest promise of the future, how can they ever get the vision of her and the exhilirating charm which should result in productive interest?" and also what the money from the book means to Buck's missionary work and to her young family. An important copy of Pearl S. Buck's classic tale, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and contributed to her winning the Nobel Prize in 1938, also in a handsome jacket.

Octavo. Original cloth stamped in gold, pictorial endpapers (fading to top green paper edge); pictorial dust jacket (mild toning to spine panel and folds, light edge-wear including a tiny chip to head of spine panel); publisher's board slipcase (later issue? light wear). Letter laid in to book and with original holograph envelope (letter erroneously dated 1981, but probably 22 April 1931). Custom calf-backed slipcase. [With:] Fine first edition copies of the two subsequent volumes in the House of Earth trilogy: Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935).