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Pearl S. Buck
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The Angry Wife: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Pearl S. Buck (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 2,001 ratings
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A novel of a Southern woman trapped in the past and two brothers divided by the Civil War, from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Good Earth.
 Lucinda Delaney is a southern belle ruled by a vision of life that no longer exists. The Civil War has come and gone and her side has lost, yet she is determined to proceed as if nothing has changed—a denial that stokes the flames of her irrational angers. Despite her returned husband’s devotion, Lucinda is sure he is having an affair with one of their slaves. After all, his Union-sympathizing brother, Tom, did just that, scandalously running away with the woman and settling into contented family life in Philadelphia. Over the years, her racist feelings and fears only intensify, and when it’s time for her own daughter to marry, her chief concern is the color of the children. The Angry Wife is a memorable and impassioned dissection of prejudice, as well as a riveting portrait of post­–Civil War America. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.
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  1. Print length
    316 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Open Road Media
  5. Publication date
    May 21, 2013
  6. File size
    8462 KB
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  1. Like all women whose lives must be lived within boundaries, she had grown deeply and she had learned to make every small part of her life as large as the universe.
    Highlighted by 102 Kindle readers
  2. He had come to see that the war had changed nothing that was fundamental in the relationship between whites and blacks.
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  3. Like most women she kept on talking after she had really finished everything she had to say.
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From the Publisher

From the Illustrated Biography

pearl s. buck, pearl s. buck painting

pearl s. buck, pearl s. buck in korea, pearl s. buck speech

pearl s. buck, pearl s. buck and family

Portrait of Pearl S. Buck

Johann Waldemar de Rehling Quistgaard painted Buck in 1933, when the writer was forty-one years old-a year after she won the Pulitzer Prize for The Good Earth. The portrait currently hangs at Green Hills Farm in Pennsylvania, where Buck lived from 1934 and which is today the headquarters for Pearl S. Buck International. (Image courtesy of Pearl S. Buck International.)

Buck Addresses Poverty in Asia

Buck addresses an audience in Korea in 1964, discussing the issues of poverty and discrimination faced by children in Asia. She established the Orphanage and Opportunity Center in Buchon City, Korea, in 1965.

Buck and Family

Buck with her husband, Richard J. Walsh, and their daughter, Elizabeth.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“[Buck] did for the working people of twentieth-century China something of what Dickens had done for London’s nineteenth-century poor.” —Hilary Spurling, author of Pearl Buck in China

About the Author

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) was a bestselling and Nobel Prize–winning author. Her classic novel The Good Earth (1931) was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and William Dean Howells Medal. Born in Hillsboro, West Virginia, Buck was the daughter of missionaries and spent much of the first half of her life in China, where many of her books are set. In 1934, civil unrest in China forced Buck back to the United States. Throughout her life she worked in support of civil and women’s rights, and established Welcome House, the first international, interracial adoption agency. In addition to her highly acclaimed novels, Buck wrote two memoirs and biographies of both of her parents. For her body of work, Buck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938, the first American woman to have done so. She died in Vermont.     

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00CLVB9NI
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media (May 21, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 21, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 8462 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 316 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 2,001 ratings

About the author

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Pearl S. Buck

Pearl S. Buck

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Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker was born on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Her parents were Southern Presbyterian missionaries, most often stationed in China, and from childhood, Pearl spoke both English and Chinese. She returned to China shortly after graduation from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1914, and the following year, she met a young agricultural economist named John Lossing Buck. They married in 1917, and immediately moved to Nanhsuchou in rural Anhwei province. In this impoverished community, Pearl Buck gathered the material that she would later use in The Good Earth and other stories of China.

Pearl began to publish stories and essays in the 1920s, in magazines such as The Nation, The Chinese Recorder, Asia, and The Atlantic Monthly. Her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, was published by the John Day Company in 1930. John Day's publisher, Richard Walsh, would eventually become Pearl's second husband, in 1935, after both received divorces.

In 1931, John Day published Pearl's second novel, The Good Earth. This became the bestselling book of both 1931 and 1932, won the Pulitzer Prize and the Howells Medal in 1935, and would be adapted as a major MGM film in 1937. Other novels and books of nonfiction quickly followed. In 1938, less than a decade after her first book had appeared, Pearl won the Nobel Prize in literature, the first American woman to do so. By the time of her death in 1973, Pearl had published more than seventy books: novels, collections of stories, biography and autobiography, poetry, drama, children's literature, and translations from the Chinese. She is buried at Green Hills Farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
2,001 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Book Addict
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read
Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2019
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I have long been a Pearl S. Buck fan and have read all of her books about China. This was a departure from her usual genre and every bit as compelling. Written in 1947, it centers around the Delaney family in West Virginia. Pierce Delaney has returned from the Civil War, emotionally damaged in some respects, but finding his estate relatively unharmed and his entitled young wife waiting to resume her life of privilege. His brother, who fought for the Union instead of the Confederacy, also returns in poor physical shape after being a prisoner of war. The book explores the changes brought by the abolition of slavery as well as race and class conflicts, as their family grows and changes through the decades. It moves into the "Long Depression" a worldwide price and economic recession, beginning in 1873 which brought the country into poverty and turmoil as the Labor movement formed and socialism inspired the working class. Buck's writing transcends history with lines that really stood out to me relating to women's feelings toward men and the long lasting effects of war on men's thoughts and behavior. Not sure "The Angry Wife" was the most descriptive title, perhaps The Entitled Wife would be better - however she was angry and much of it was felt towards her own husband. This is a multi-generational family saga to be savored!
30 people found this helpful
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Jenny O'Rear
4.0 out of 5 stars Post Civil War South
Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2018
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A different view of the old south and it's traditions. Miss Buck shows us a Yankees view of how the south kept as much as possible to the old ways after the war against the north. As a Southern myself, I find it a fascinating point of view. Once I started the book I found it hard to put down. If you are a lover of historical fiction, you will love this book. It is typical " Pearl. S. Buck. " Well written. A planter returns to his wife and children. His home has somehow survived the burning destruction of the South. His only thoughts are of peace and returning back to the way things were before the war. Good reading. Good plot. Pearl S. Buck will always keep you entertained!!!
21 people found this helpful
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ann-marie pahoulis
5.0 out of 5 stars I loved this book.
Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2024
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P. S. Buck does not fail to bring the reader into the lives of her characters. I was immersed in the story from beginning to end.
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Website's Mom
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best historical fiction
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2023
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books to describe the repercussions of the Civil War and the turmoil of industrial expansion. Nuggets of wisdom throughout. Heartily recommend!
2 people found this helpful
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Rick L. Doyle
3.0 out of 5 stars Not a Typical Pearl Buck Novel
Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2023
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This book is not nearly as good as the ones written by Pearl Buck about China. Her Chinese characters are better developed than the Americans portrayed in THE ANGRY WIFE.
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Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars She always knows what’s inside a person.
Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2024
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Buck can explain the actions of the unlikable antagonist and give insight to the character of the quietest most insignificant being.
Her story in The Angry Wife includes so many world events, while getting at the simple meaning of relationships.
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Jean B
5.0 out of 5 stars A difficult but brilliant book
Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2022
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This book is not easy to read. There are words and beliefs throughout that are disgusting and repellent - they were wrong then and they are wrong now. But the honest, clear and forthright way in which Buck wrote this story was so moving to me.
2 people found this helpful
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LinnieJean
5.0 out of 5 stars A Whole New Appreciation for Buck’s Talent!
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2020
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I love Pearl S. Buck’s writing. I was absolutely astounded by this book, about the post Civil War South and nation. I kept having to remind myself that this was written in 1947...the themes in the book are ones that we struggle with even today: rich vs. poor; nationalism and fear of outside influences on our culture; labor struggles with the working man wanting a good life as a resu,t of hard work but investors wanting to keep their profit margins wide at their expense. And of course racial prejudices that, by the way, were NOT exclusive to the southern US.

We all recognize Ms. Buck as a noted author about the Far East, due to her life experience there. For me this book may be her most remarkable work in that I felt the struggle of Pierce in his attempt reconcile that although the South lost the war, the old way of life, the the deeply ingrained world views and social orders would not be so easily relinquished.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Pam
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful, warm novel.
Reviewed in Australia on September 24, 2017
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This is a wonderful story written by a Nobel Prize winning authoress. Simply written covering the differences in race in America after the Civil War and that still exist in that country today. Beautiful English prose putting into words what I wish I could say. I cannot praise this Author enough or this novel which is only the second I have read of her multitude of award winning novels. The stories were written in a different age, and in another country to mine (Australia) but they are warm, real and encompassing.
Any novel written by this Author will be a good read. She stands apart from most Authors.
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Mamone
5.0 out of 5 stars What a change from the usual Pearly Buck stories. ...
Reviewed in Canada on February 10, 2016
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What a change from the usual Pearly Buck stories. I though to be entering another Chinese family with this - what a surprise!
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Marso
4.0 out of 5 stars Captivating!
Reviewed in Canada on September 26, 2017
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Fascinating story picturing the soul and heart of the South and its confrontation with the changes faced after the war with the North.
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Paul
4.0 out of 5 stars So much heart
Reviewed in Australia on October 11, 2020
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There is so much keen understanding in Ms Buck’s writing. I’m always surprised by the strong and progressive beliefs she weaves into her stories, without the least sense of hectoring. I feel she was a very fine person. Nonetheless, it is her love of story that carries her books most strongly and she is an engrossing storyteller. I read the Chinese trilogy in back to back sittings utterly immersed.
In this book Ms Buck shows she understands men, her compassionate writing extends even to us faulted beings.
I love intelligent and sensitive writers and I’m going to have a mini binge on Pearl Buck novels now. Her gentle and wise sensibility is just what I feel like. In a world where wisdom and kindness appear a little scarce it’s great to dive into stories such as these.
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TA
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on October 16, 2017
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Excellent!!! Ms. Buck delivers once again!
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