The Good Earth

O-lan is a homely servant girl in the village’s greatest house. When she is taken as a wife by Wang Lung, a simple Chinese farmer, she toils tirelessly through four pregnancies for their family’s survival. Reward at first is meagre, but there is hope in their work, sustenance in the land. Until the famine comes.

Forced to flee or die of starvation, the family arrives in the city, joining thousands of peasants to beg on the streets. It seems that all is lost, until a combination of good luck and O-lan’s will to survive conspires to return them to their home with undreamt of wealth. But they have betrayed the earth that had previously sustained them, and their money breeds only mistrust and deception - and heartbreak for the woman who had saved them.

Set against a China on the brink of change, The Good Earth is a riveting family saga and story of female sacrifice; a classic of twentieth-century literature.