The Chinese Novel. Nobel Lecture Delivered Before the Swedish Academy at Stockholm, December 12, 1938. - Signed - Pearl S. Buck 1939 - The John Day Company, New York - First Edition Signed by Pearl S. Buck on front free endpaper, a fine copy in a superior example of the delicate black and gilt foil dust jacket.

This lecture, presented on receipt of the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature, detailed Buck's thoughts on the history, evolution, and impact of the Chinese novel, as well as her perception of its effects on her writing style.
  Pearl S Buck (1892-1973) was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Literature. Until 1924 she lived principally in China, where she, her parents, and her first husband, John Lossing Buck, were missionaries. She is famous for vivid, compassionate novels about life in China. The Good Earth (1931; Pulitzer Prize), considered her finest work, describes a Chinese peasant’s rise to wealth and brilliantly conveys a sense of the daily life of ordinary Chinese people. Among her other novels of China are East Wind: West Wind (1930), Dragon Seed (1942), Imperial Woman (1956), and Mandala (1971). In 1935, she married her publisher Richard J. Walsh, president of the John Day Company. In 1949 Buck founded Welcome House, which provided care for the children of Asian women and American soldiers; the Pearl Buck Foundation of Philadelphia, to which she consigned most of her royalties, aids in the adoption of Amerasian children

Buck published over 85 books include works for children, plays, biographies, and works of non-fiction, such as
China As I See It (1970).

Provenance: From the library of Elsie Adam with engraved art-deco bookplate by Glen Stirling and additional signature to the first blank.

Slim octavo (book size 2.2x14.9cm), pp. [2] 59 [3]. In publisher's black cloth with spine lettered in gilt and facsimile signature stamped in gilt to front board, top edge tinted red. Dust jacket priced $1.50 to upper corner of front flap and publisher’s decorative trim to all corners.
  Condition: Fine in very good dust jacket with less than the usual rubbing to panels, light wear to corners and spine ends, slightly heavier along outer folds of spie.   Ref: 111785   Price: HK$ 5,000