The books in this section are usually hardcover and in decent shape, though we'll sometimes offer hard-to-find books in lesser condition at a reduced price. Though we often put images of the book with their original dust jackets, the copies here won't always (or even often) have them. If that is important to you, please call ahead or say so in the order comments!
Young Peony is sold into a rich Chinese household as a bondmaid—an awkward role in which she is more a servant, but less a daughter. As she grows into a lovely, provocative young woman, Peony falls in love with the family's only son. However, tradition forbids them to wed. How she resolves her love for him and her devotion to her adoptive family unfolds in this profound tale, based on true events in China over a century ago.
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Pearl Buck adds one more beautiful and notable woman to the gallery of women in her novels. This time it is Peony, sold as a child into a rich house in China, brought up as a bondmaid, one who is more than a servant, less than a daughter. She grows into a provocative and lovely girl and she falls in love with the only son of the house. But tradition forbids her to be his wife. How she deals with her love, how she controls her destiny—and his too—make the story.
The setting and the essential meaning of the novel are true to history. Much of what happens in these pages did actually happen about a hundred years ago in old China. Yet history is here enriched and enlivened by the quick wit, the delicate perceptions, the profound warmth of an exquisite Chinese girl, who in her own fashion chose love above all the other gifts that life might have given her.
—from the dust jacket
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