The Good Earth

Wang Lung is a poor farmer in old agrarian China, and his whole life rests on the soil he works. He tends the land, and it feeds him and his family in return. Close by stands the House of Hwang, whose nobles look down on the land and the people who work it.

Hard years arrive. Flood and drought wreck the harvests, and the family has to leave the farm to find work in the city. There the working poor riot and break into the homes of the rich, who are driven to flee.

During that unrest Wang Lung shows mercy to one of the nobles, and the kindness is repaid. From that moment his fortunes begin to climb, while the House of Hwang goes into decline.

The book is a family saga set in a rural society, following one man's fortunes against the fall of a grander household. It moves between the fields and the city, between hunger and prosperity, and its tone is earnest and sorrowful. Readers who want a story of land, class and survival in pre-modern China will find the premise laid out plainly here.