Pearl S. Buck Standalone Novels books in order

Reading order

Pearl S. Buck’s standalone novels run from 1930 to 2013, though most were written during her active decades from the 1930s through the 1970s. The breadth of the catalog is considerable: East Wind: West Wind, her 1930 debut, already established the cultural collision theme — a Chinese woman educated in Western ideas navigating a traditional marriage — that would recur throughout her career.

Novels like Pavilion of Women (1946), Imperial Woman (1956), and The Living Reed (1963) are among the most substantial of the standalones. Pavilion of Women follows a Chinese matriarch who decides at forty to withdraw from her wifely duties; Imperial Woman centers on the Empress Dowager Cixi. The Living Reed is set in Korea across several generations. All three reward readers willing to spend time with longer, more intricate narratives than The Good Earth.

The later standalones from the 1960s and 1970s increasingly address Western settings and contemporary American life, showing a Buck less focused on China and more on questions of race, culture, and identity in America. The Eternal Wonder, published posthumously in 2013, was written in the 1960s and rounds out the catalog.