The Several Worlds of Pearl S. Buck

by Lipscomb, Elizabeth Johnston; Webb, Frances E.; Conn, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780313291524
• ISBN10: 0313291527
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1994-05-30
• Publisher: Praeger Pub Text

Summary

Pearl Buck made important contributions as a humanitarian and an advocate of racial equality and women's rights. She did much to change American attitudes toward persons with mental retardation and toward mixed-race children. She was a major force in shaping American views of Asia, particularly China, during the 1930s and 1940s. Until 1993, she was first American woman to win both the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature. The 13 essays in this book, the first such collection on Buck to be published in the United States, view her from historical, humanitarian, and literary perspectives.

Table of Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Introduction: Rediscovering Pearl S. Buck by Peter Conn

Keynote Adress: Pearl S. Buck and the American Quest for China by James C. Thomson, Jr.

Historical Perspectives

The Good Earth, Revolution, and the American Raj in China by Charles W. Hayford

Pearl S. Buck in Search of America by David D. Buck

Pearl S. Buck and American Women's History by John d'Entremont

Pearl S. Buck's Reception in China Reconsidered by Liu Haiping

Humanitarian Perspectives

East/West Ties: Amerasian Children and the Work of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation by Grace C.K. Sum

Welcome House: A Forty-Year History by Peter Conn

Buck's Writings on Handicapped Children by Deborah Clement Raessler

Literary Perspectives

Who's Afraid of Pearl S. Buck? by Jane M. Rabb

Pearl S. Buck and American Literary Culture by Peter Conn

Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth: The Novel as Epic by Pradyumna S. Chauhan

Scripting The Good Earth: Versions of the Novel for the Screen by James L. Hoban, Jr.

Selected Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

Nobel Prize Portrait

Senior College Portrait

Commemorative Stamp

White House Gala

With Amerasian Children

At Her Desk

MGM's The Good Earth