Pearl S. Buck, Author, Papers
Collection
Collection Number: A&M 0727
Papers of Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973), an American fiction writer and humanitarian who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938 for her novels about peasant life in China. Though she was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia, Buck was the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries and she was raised in and lived the first part of her adult life in China.
Dating chiefly from 1933 to 1966, the collection contains typescript and handwritten drafts of articles, reviews, novels, plays, short stories, and speeches; reference materials; and correspondence that document Pearl Buck's literary, political, and humanitarian activities from 1933 to 1976.
Prominent topics include Buck's writing, including novels, short stories, articles, and speeches, and publication of her work; Chinese history, politics, and culture; American culture; interracial and international adoption; children with disabilities; and Buck's work for human rights.
Prominent correspondents include Richard Walsh, William E. Hocking, and various authors and politicians. Papers also include materials related to the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace and to other Chinese and American writers.
Addenda include photos, correspondence, publications, drafts of Buck's work, ephemera, recordings, artifacts, and other material.
For additional Pearl Buck material, see A&M 4052, Pearl S. Buck, Author, Literary Manuscripts.
There are twelve series in this collection, plus addenda. Most of the material in series 1-6 was written by Buck.
Series 1. Articles; circa 1937-1944; box 1 - box 2, folder 39.
Series 2. Book Reviews; undated; box 2, folder 40-51.
Series 3. Fiction; circa 1930-1960; box 2, folder 52 - box 5, folder 7.
Series 4. Biographical Writings; undated; box 5, folder 8 - box 6, folder 1.
Series 5. Book Manuscripts; undated; box 6, folder 2 - box 7B.
Series 6. Speeches; circa 1930-1969; box 8, folders 1-27.
Series 7. Reference Materials; circa 1937-1950s; box 8, folders 28-32.
Series 8. Miscellaneous Materials; circa 1900-1967, undated; box 9.
Series 9. Writings by Other Authors; 1930-1931, undated; box 10.
Series 10. James Comstock Collection; 1939-1970, undated; box 11.
Series 11. Addenda--Correspondence; 1933-1966, undated; boxes 12-14.
Series 12. Oversized; ca. 1930s-1970s, undated; box 28, folders 1-9.
Addendum of 2006/05/22; 1948; box 34.
Addendum of 2015/04/24; 1939-1988, undated; box 14, folder 14.
Addendum of 2015/05/08; 1921-1945; boxes 15-24.
Addendum of 2015/11/09; circa 1943; box 14, folder 15-19.
Addendum of 2016/06/08; circa 2002; box 25.
Addendum of 2017/04/10; circa 1937-1983; box 26, folders 1-3.
Addendum of 2017/06/22; circa 1940-1983, undated; box 27, folders 1-17.
Addendum of 2017/07/17; 2017; box 25.
Addendum of 2017/07/28; 1983; box 25, folder 3.
Addendum of 2017/08/07; circa 1941, 1982; box 28, folder 10.
Addendum of 2017/08/22; 2010; box 26, folder 4.
Addendum of 2018/02/27; 2015; box 26, folder 5.
Addendum of 2018/05/23; undated; box 35, folder 4.
Addendum of 2018/06/01; 1943-1962; box 35, folder 6.
Addendum of 2018/08/16; 1932; box 35, folder 2.
Addendum of 2018/08/17; 1942; box 35, folder 3.
Addendum of 2019/02/18; 1973; box 29.
Addendum of 2019/03/19; 2015-2018; boxes 30-31.
Addendum of 2019/07/23; 2015-2018; boxes 32-33.
Addendum of 2019/10/01; undated; box 34.
Addendum of 2020/08/17; 1946-1983; box 35, folder 5.
Addendum of 2021/03/07; September 2015; box 32, folder 1.
Addendum of 2021/04/28; circa 1971-1972; box 35, folder 1.
Addendum of 2023/07/30; 1938-1940 and undated; box 32, folder 2.
No special access restriction applies.
Permission to publish or reproduce is required from the copyright holder. For more information, please see the Permissions and Copyright page on the West Virginia and Regional History Center website.
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia, in 1892 to Caroline Stulting Sydenstricker and Absalom Sydenstricker, Southern Presbyterian missionaries who returned to China shortly after their daughter's birth. Pearl was raised and educated in Chinkiang (Zhenjiang), China, but studied in the United States at Randolph Macon Women's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, when she was seventeen. She returned to China after her graduation in 1914, and in 1917 Pearl married agricultural economist and missionary John Lossing Buck. The Bucks lived in Nanhsuchou (Nanxuzhou) in rural Anhwei (Anhui) Province and later in Nanking (Nanjing), China, until 1934. They had one biological daughter, Carol, who had severe intellectual and physical disabilities, and adopted another daughter, Janice.
Pearl began writing about Chinese peasant life and culture and the interactions between East and West in the 1920s, and her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, was published in 1930. She published the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Good Earth in 1931, and went on to write more than seventy novels, plays, and short stories and to author numerous articles and essays. Other early books include Sons (1932), A House Divided (1935), The First Wife and Other Stories (1933), All Men are Brothers (1933, translation), The Mother (1934), The Exile (1936), Fighting Angel (1936), and This Proud Heart (1938). In 1938 Pearl Buck was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
By 1935, Pearl had divorced her husband and married her publisher and editor, Richard J. Walsh. They settled at Green Hills Farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to be close to Carol, and the Walshes adopted six more children. Pearl was a prolific writer, and most of her fiction remained set in China and the Far East. Other novels include Dragon Seed (1942), Pavilion of Women (1946), God's Men (1951), Come, My Beloved (1953), Imperial Woman (1956), Letter from Peking (1957), and The Living Reed (1963). However, due to personal and political circumstances, Pearl never returned to China after she left in 1934.
Pearl campaigned tirelessly for issues related to Chinese human rights, interracial understanding, and orphaned and disabled children for the rest of her life. In 1949 she founded Welcome House, the first interracial adoption agency in the United States. In 1964 she established the Pearl S. Buck Foundation to provide medical care and education for Amerasian children. Pearl also championed civil rights and women's rights in the United States.
Richard Walsh died in 1960, and in the early 1960s Pearl began a loving relationship with lifelong friend William Ernest Hocking that lasted until Hocking's death in 1966. By 1969, Pearl had moved to Danby, Vermont. Pearl S. Buck died in Vermont in 1973 and is buried at Green Hills Farm in Pennsylvania.
13.33 Linear Feet (Summary: 13 ft. 4 in. (23 document cases, 5 in. each); (9 document cases, 2.5 in. each); (1 large flat storage box, 3.5 in.); (1 record carton, 15 in.); (1 large flat storage box, 3 in.); (1 large flat storage box, 1 in.))
English
Papers of Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973), an American fiction writer and humanitarian who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938 for her novels about peasant life in China. Dating chiefly from 1933 to 1966, the collection contains typescript and handwritten drafts of articles, reviews, novels, plays, short stories, and speeches; reference materials; and correspondence that document Pearl Buck's literary, political, and humanitarian activities from 1933 to 1976. Prominent topics include Buck's writing, including novels, short stories, articles, and speeches, and publication of her work; Chinese history, politics, and culture; American culture; interracial and international adoption; children with disabilities; and Buck's work for human rights. Prominent correspondents include Richard Walsh, William E. Hocking, and various authors and politicians. Papers also include materials related to the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace and to other Chinese and American writers. Addenda include photos, correspondence, publications, drafts of Buck's work, ephemera, recordings, and other material.
West Virginia and Regional History Center / West Virginia University / 1549 University Avenue / P.O. Box 6069 / Morgantown, WV 26506-6069 / Phone: 304-293-3536 / Fax: 304-293-3981 / URL: https://wvrhc.lib.wvu.edu/
Purchase from Apfelbaum, Charles, 1987/01/16 --- ADD of 2006/05/22: Purchase, Wolf’s Head Books, 2006 May 22. --- ADD of 2018/05/23: Gift of Haden, Priscilla, 2018 May 23. --- ADD of 2018/06/01: Purchase, internet vendors, 2018 June. --- ADD of 2018/08/16: Purchase, Gregory, Jim, 2018 August. --- ADD of 2018/08/17: Purchase, Good, Kimberly, 2018 August. --- ADD of 2019/10/01: Purchase, Metcalf, Skip, 2019 October. --- ADD of 2020/08/17: Purchase, Lord Durham Rare Books, 2020 August. --- ADD of 2021/04/28: Gift of Musgrave, Grace, 2021 April 28.
Original signed letter from Buck to Mrs. Charles Wilde (1962) moved to A&M 435, Rare Signatures.
Part of the West Virginia and Regional History Center Repository