Buck Resources: Home

This manuscript and typescript collection consists of approximately thirty-five pieces, totaling over 2,500 pages, with many hundreds of words added by Pearl S. Buck. It includes novels, short stories, magazine articles, plays, and other materials.

This collection, donated by scholar Jane M. Rabb (also known as Jane Rabb Cohen), reflects her research leading to the entry on Pearl S. Buck in the reference work Notable American Women: The Modern Period (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980) and to a possible biographical or critical study that was never completed. The collection includes photocopies of numerous letters from Pearl S. Buck, housed in several different libraries, and more than forty audiotapes of interviews with individuals personally acquainted with Buck, as well as Rabb's correspondence with Buck friends, acquaintances, and business associates.

Dr. Warren A. Sherk, an Asian Studies scholar, served in the 1940's as national Field Secretary for the East and West Association, founded by Pearl S. Buck and her husband Richard J. Walsh. He became a lifelong admirer of the author and in 1992, the centennial of her birth, he published a study of her life and work entitled Pearl S. Buck: Good Earth Mother. His materials on Buck were donated to the Lipscomb Library by his widow, Jean Sherk, after his death.

The Nora B. Stirling Collection consists of the materials used by the donor in writing the biography, Pearl Buck: A Woman in Conflict, published by New Century Publishers in 1983. Included are drafts of the book, copies of interviews with those who knew Pearl S. Buck at various times in her life, copies of letters from Buck, members of her family, friends and acquaintances, several of her books annotated by Nora Stirling, and a large number of other sources of information on her life and work. Original letters in the Collection have been placed in the Rare Book Room and replaced in the Stirling Collection by photocopies.

Letters written by Pearl S. Buck, sorted by recipient name, A - M

Letters written by Pearl S. Buck, sorted by recipient name, N - Z

Letters written to Pearl S. Buck

Letters written by Pearl S. Buck and sent to one of her closest college friends, Emma Edmunds White. Letters date between 1911 and 1972.

This paper was presented by Joy Elizabeth Abbot '92 at the Pearl S. Buck Centennial Symposium held at Randolph-Macon Woman's College on March 26-28, 1992.