The Chinese Novel

Description

Fine in Near Fine jacket; signed by author. Slipcase also present. See scans and description. New York: The John Day Company, 1939. First Edition, signed by the author, uninscribed, on the ffep. Thin octavo, 59 pp. Black cloth binding with gilt imprinting, black and gold jacket. Fine book in Near Fine jacket showing only light peripheral wear. Unclipped, still bearing the $ 1.50 1939 price. The very scarce slipcase is also present, albeit with detached spine; slipcase otherwise quite perfect. See all scans. One of Buck's scarcest. The Chinese Novel is Buck's Nobel Lecture delivered at the Swedish Academy upon winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. Buck, the first of just two American women to win the prize, points out the distinct nature of the Chinese novel, the quintessential grass-roots form which comes from and lives within the Chinese common people whose tea house and farming villages are the roots of the stories contained therein. She also predicted - correctly - that her own adherence to this form would cause her to fall out of the critical limelight, in time. With the slipcase, hard to replace. Provenance provided to purchaser. L12n