Never-before-seen Pearl S. Buck novel will be released this fall

A never-before-published book by writer Pearl S. Buck will be released after being discovered in a storage unit.

The person who discovered the manuscript, which is titled “The Eternal Wonder,” gave it to the Buck family this past December. It is thought that Buck finished the novel shortly before her death.

“The Eternal Wonder” is “the coming-of-age story of Randolph Colfax, an extraordinarily gifted young man whose search for meaning and purpose leads him to New York, England, Paris and on a mission patrolling the DMZ in Korea that will change his life forever – and, ultimately, to love,” says publisher Open Road Integrated Media, which will be releasing the book.

Buck’s son Edgar S. Walsh, who is also in charge of her literary estate, said her family is baffled as to how the manuscript made its way to Texas.

“After my mother died in Vermont, her personal possessions were not carefully controlled,” he told the New York Times. “The family didn’t have access. Various things were stolen. Somebody in Vermont ran off with this thing, and it eventually ended up in Texas.”

Jane Friedman, the chief executive of publisher Open Road, told the NYT that the novel has everything Pearl S. Buck fans have come to enjoy.

“All of the themes that were important to Pearl Buck are in this book,” she said. “The main character, the love, the attention to detail of the Chinese artifacts, the relationship this young man has. She writes in a way that is absolutely hypnotic.”

“The Eternal Wonder” is scheduled for a fall release.

Buck was the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, securing the award in 1938. In addition, her novel “The Good Earth” won the Pulitzer Prize in 1938.

Buck, whose parents were missionaries, grew up in China and lived there until she came to America to attend college. She went back after graduating in 1914 and lived there for some time before returning to the US permanently 20 years later, a few years after “The Good Earth” was published in 1931. Buck died in 1973.