The Chinese Novel: Nobel Lecture Delivered Before the Swedish Academy at Stockholm, December 12, 1938

New York: John Day, 1939. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. The lecture given by Buck on accepting the Nobel Prize for literature. She was the third American (after Sinclair Lewis and Eugene O'Neill) and fourth woman (after Selma Lagerof, Grazia Deledda, and Sigrid Undset) to win the prize.

Buck, whose best-known novel, The Good Earth, is set in China, uses the Nobel pulpit to discuss Chinese fiction, a little considered subject at the time. It wasn't until 2012 that a Chinese writer-Mo Yan-was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.

59 pages. First edition (first printing). A very good copy in a very good dust jacket with a snag on the back panel resulting in a narrow band of creasing and some tears. Bookplate on the front pastedown. In a very good slipcase with some wear to the corners.

This copy is one of an unspecified number signed by Buck and issued in a slipcase. It is possible that none of the signed copies were for sale. This one comes with a letter from the publisher addressed "Dear Bookseller" that reads, "We take pleasure in sending you with our compliments a personal advance copy of The Chinese Novel..." The letter goes on to promote a forthcoming Chinese novel, Moment in Peking by Lin Yutang.

This book is not common with the slipcase and letter.