One of Pearl Buck's best novels. It focuses on an anonymous peasant woman in pre-revolutionary China. Without warning, her restless husband abandons her, and she, disappointed, is left to work the land, raise her three children alone, and care for her elderly mother-in-law. To avoid the neighbors' comments, she pretends that her husband is traveling and sends letters to herself, signed in his name. An unforgettable story of a woman's strength and a remarkable myth about the role of mothers. This novel is a powerful achievement from a master of twentieth-century fiction.

"Pearl Buck has never done better work than this. With a great gift of intuition, she entered the mind, heart, and spirit of the Chinese peasant woman and revealed the enduring values of life".
-The Times Literary Supplement