FBI Recovers 'Good Earth' Manuscript

The manuscript of Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth" has turned up at a Philadelphia auction house, having gone missing in 1966. The FBI was called in after the daughter of one of the author's secretaries tried to put it for sale, the AP reports. Buck died in1973, believing the 400-page manuscript of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel had been stolen.

No charges will be filed, says a US attorney, though it appears the manuscript was "inappropriately obtained." Written in 1931, "The Good Earth" deals with family life in rural China;  challenging racial stereotypes, it contributed to Buck's winning the Nobel Prize in 1938. For now, the manuscript is in FBI custody, as the family trust and Buck foundation decide its fate. (More stolen manuscript stories.)