The writer Pearl S. Buck emerged into literary stardom in 1931 when she published a book called The Good Earth. That story of family life in a Chinese village won the novelist international acclaim, the Pulitzer, and eventually, a Nobel Prize. Her upbringing in China as the American daughter of missionaries served as inspiration for that novel and many, many others; by her death in 1973, Buck had written more than 100 books, including 43 novels.
Last December, Buck's son Edgar Walsh — who now manages her literary estate — received an email with some unexpected news. A 44th novel by his mother had been discovered in Texas.
"Someone, and I do not know who, took the manuscript from the house in which [Buck] died in Vermont and went away with it," Walsh says. "Whoever that person was wound up in Texas, rented a storage unit and put the manuscript in there. And that's where it was found."
The family had some trouble over the years, he tells NPR's Jacki Lyden, but things have been pretty good lately. His mother's work experienced a resurgence of attention in 2004 when Oprah selected The Good Earth for her book club.
Walsh didn't know Buck had spent her final years writing this novel.
"And I certainly didn't know someone had spirited the manuscript out of the home in which she had lived her last years in Vermont," he says, "and had concealed it from me and the family for 40 years."
Two manuscripts of the novel, titled The Eternal Wonder, were found — one typewritten and one written in the author's own handwriting. Fortunately, Walsh says, the estate was able to acquire the manuscripts without too much trouble.
"I contacted an attorney in Philadelphia [named] Peter Hearn," Walsh says. Hearn had helped Walsh with other disputes over Buck's work. "And [I] said, 'We will not give her what she's asking for, but we will pay her a modest sum of money, and we want it returned immediately.' That worked."
More About Pearl Buck:
The Two-Way
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