One of the challenges of writing about a great author, particularly one who has elegantly written about her own life, is deciding when to use one's own words and when to let the writer speak for herself. A similar challenge faces the reviewer, and critics reading Pearl Buck in China mostly used their articles as occasions to celebrate the subject rather than the biography. Still, if reviewers were not effusive in their praise, they had few complaints about Spurling's book and clearly admired her thorough research and elegant prose. But as the New York Times pointed out, "Ms. Spurling's book isn't a full-dress biography"; instead, it focuses mostly on Buck's formative years as a writer. For a more comprehensive biography, readers may wish to turn to Peter Conn's 1996 study, Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography. This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.