Editing Pearl S Buck (section)

== Path to Pennsylvania ==

Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker was born on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia, but spent most of her childhood and young adulthood in China, where her missionary parents had settled. Her upbringing in China provided the material that her most celebrated work would explore, her understanding of Chinese society informing novels that introduced Western readers to Asian perspectives. Her return to America in the 1930s, following divorce from her first husband, brought her to the Philadelphia region where she would establish permanent residence.<ref name="spurling">{{cite book |last=Spurling |first=Hilary |title=Pearl Buck in China: Journey to The Good Earth |year=2010 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York}}</ref>

Her purchase of Green Hills Farm in Perkasie, Bucks County, in 1935 established the home she would maintain for nearly forty years. The stone farmhouse and surrounding acreage provided the domestic base from which her literary and humanitarian work proceeded. Her marriage to publisher Richard Walsh and her adoption of numerous children of mixed racial heritage transformed the farm into a household whose diversity reflected her humanitarian commitments. The Philadelphia region, with its publishing industry and cultural institutions, provided the context her career required.<ref name="conn"/>

Her choice of Bucks County placed her among the artists and writers who had found the region congenial—the New Hope art colony nearby, the Mercer Museum and Fonthill Castle demonstrating the area's cultural sophistication. The rural setting provided retreat from urban demands while proximity to Philadelphia and New York enabled the publishing and cultural connections her career required. Her decades in Bucks County demonstrated that significant literary careers could unfold outside urban centers, the region's appeal evident in her long residence.<ref name="spurling"/>