Wang Lung, rising from humble Chinese farmer to wealthy landowner, gloried in the soil he worked. He held it above his family, even above his gods. Buts soon, between Wang Lung and the kindly soil that sustained his, came flood and drought,, pestilence and revolution….

Through this one Chinese Peasant and his children. Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck traces the whole cycle of life, its terrors, its passions, its persistent ambitions and its rewards.