This is so fascinating, filling in the environment in which Pearl Buck wrote this book, isn't it? I understand she wrote the book in China, but need to understand with whom she was living, what she was doing there. Was she, like her parents, a missionary? Was it this contact with the peasantry in Chinkiang, China (?) that inspired the story we are about to read?
I think we need a time-line, as she didn't seem to stay in any one place too long. While searching for information on her seven adopted children, I learned that she had married her husband, John Lossing Buck in 1917 in Nanking, China, where Pearl spent most of her time caring for her mentally disabled daughter, Carol, who was born in 1920. Poor little Carol, Jude. We're told she returned to America to pursue her master's degree in English at Cornell University. Wasn't this the same year she adopted the first of the seven children, Janice? I'd like to learn more of Janice, from Janice, Ella. If she was born in 1925, she must be about 88 now. I know Pearl wrote The Good Earth in China in 1932. I wonder if she took Jancie to live in China with her. If not, where is Janice at this time? As Jude says, she divorced her husband - in 1935. Even though she remarried, she kept Buck's name through her whole life.
