[In the following review, Bellows discusses the difficulties of developing a fictional story around an historical figure, and how Buck approaches the problem in her Imperial Woman.]

General events in the Chinese Empire from the early 1850's to the early 1900's are now a matter of history. What went on in the separate world inside the walls of the Forbidden City is less well known and subject to conjecture and dispute. What went on in the mind of Tzu Hsi, Empress Dowager of China, strong ruler and unpredictable woman, is anybody's guess and a challenge to the imagination. She was not a person to share her private thoughts with another, or to leave a record of them; and any attempt to cast her as the point-of-view character in a novel must necessarily be a matter for speculation.

Imperial Woman begins with the summoning of Orchid (her girlhood name), one of 60 Manchu maidens, to the palace of Emperor Hsien-Feng, there to become "Yehonala," his favorite concubine. It follows her elevation, upon the birth of her son, to the rank of Empress, her assumption of the power behind the weak throne, her regency over three child emperors, her absolute and tyrannical rule as Tzu Hsi the Empress Dowager, her final concessions to the Western powers, and the tottering of the Manchu dynasty.

Where there is so much uncertainty concerning the private life of a prominent figure, a novelist assumes a considerable responsibility in deciding which "facts" to accept as true. Pearl Buck has not evaded this responsibility. Her development of the Empress' story and character tallies closely enough with most accounts of historians and memoirs of close associates of the Dowager. But in each instance where the facts are uncertain, the author has made a clear-cut decision. She could hardly do otherwise, since her story purports to take the reader into the Empress' mind and heart and to follow her private acts; and in most cases the decision seems the logical one, judged in the light of other books.

Even so, it was an arbitrary and spectacular choice to assume that the royal heir, Tung Chin, was in reality the son of Jung Lu, the Empress' Manchu kinsman, childhood sweetheart, trusted adviser, and lifetime adorer in an idealistic love which was only once consummated; especially since historians in general seem not to have advanced this theory, although they recognize, in varying degrees, some sort of liaison between the Empress and her kinsman.

The atmosphere and the authenticity of era and conditions are beyond criticism. The reader is taken inside the walls of the Forbidden City. He threads the terrifying mazes of court intrigue. He meets Tzu Hsi in all her contradictory charm, beauty, gentleness, rage, relentlessness and cruelty. There are accounts of debauchery and atrocity that may offend some readers. But there could be no authentic picture of the Forbidden City without them.

The style is eminently suited to the tale. Some of the scenes have all the dramatically static quality of Chinese figures painted on porcelain.

To mold an historical character to the form of a novel is always a little precarious, especially when the figure has not yet receded so far into the past as to be almost legendary. In the case of so persuasive a writer as Pearl Buck, the casual reader may find himself accepting as factual history incidents and conversations which must be imaginary. Imperial Woman is enhanced and clarified, rather than otherwise, by the use of supplementary reading.