8 h 2 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does it take to belong when prejudice reaches into the smallest moments of family life?
In Mrs. Spring Fragrance, Sui Sin Far brings Chinese people and their neighbors in North America into view. This short-story collection, first published in 1912, follows wives, husbands, children and friends as they seek a place and hold on to their dignity. Ordinary encounters carry questions that reach beyond any single household.
Two cultures meet in homes, friendships and working lives. Immigration laws and daily discrimination press on private happiness, shaping what people can do and how they live beside one another. Women stand at the center: wives, mothers, daughters and women earning their living. Sui Sin Far gives these lives a quiet, respectful attention that invites you to look closer.
What you’ll discover
- Ordinary lives, fully seen Meet people whose daily hopes and struggles matter more than the stereotypes surrounding them.
- Two cultures at home Explore how Chinese and non-Chinese lives meet through family, friendship, work and neighboring homes.
- Private happiness under pressure See how immigration laws and everyday prejudice reach into the choices people make.
- Women at the center Follow wives, mothers, daughters and working women as they seek dignity and a place.
- Small moments, larger questions Discover how gentle stories make room for difficult questions about identity and belonging.
Who will love it
For readers who love short stories, family drama and tender humor, and who enjoy hearing the voices of immigrants, wives, teachers and children in turn-of-the-century America.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A cheerful wife finds her own quiet way
- A woman who makes herself deserves respect
- Old duty and new ways pull a marriage apart
- Being half of two races means being claimed by both
- Love across the color line brings both joy and fear
- Laws at the border treat families as paper
- Chinatown women bargain with duty and desire
- Teachers and pupils learn from one another
- Small fables teach kindness in the book's last pages
Who’s who
- Mrs. Spring FragranceA lively Seattle wife who helps young lovers, teases her husband and plans a book about Americans.
- Mr. Spring FragranceA self-made merchant who supports family and students in China and worries about his wife's American ways.
- Pau LinA wife from a seacoast village who arrives in San Francisco and fears the new world will take her son.
- Wou SankweiA bookkeeper in San Francisco who has risen through American friends and now struggles to keep two lives.
- PanA half-white, half-Chinese girl in Chinatown who trusts a reporter and must then choose who she is.
- MinnieAn American woman who leaves a cold marriage and finds respect from a Chinese merchant, Liu Kanghi.
- Miss McLeodA Scottish teacher in Chinatown whom her pupils and their parents trust and love.
- Little MeA proud, poor schoolboy who wants to give his teacher a gift better than the rich children's.
Formats and delivery
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- Audiobook
- 8 h 2 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 8 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear La señora Fragancia de Primavera in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
La señora Fragancia de Primavera
by Sui Sin Far · 1912
A Chinese wife in Seattle quotes a poem to comfort a young neighbor, and her husband takes its meaning to heart.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
What does it cost to live between two worlds? In Mrs. Spring Fragrance, Sui Sin Far gathers stories of Chinese families and children in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Canada.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A cheerful wife finds her own quiet way
The title story opens in Seattle, where Mrs. Spring Fragrance has learned English so well that her husband says no American words are left for her. She is warm, playful and clever. Through her, Sui Sin Far shows how a Chinese couple lives between two cultures and keeps its good humor.
Mrs. Spring Fragrance helps her young neighbor Laura Chin Yuen, who loves the baseball pitcher Kai Tzu but is promised to a man in San Francisco. To console Laura, she quotes an American verse about loving and losing. Her husband overhears it through the window and takes it to mean something quite different. He asks an American neighbor to explain the verse, but the answer only troubles him more.
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What is Mrs. Spring Fragrance about?
It is a collection of stories about Chinese families, wives, teachers and children in America and Canada. The tales cover love, marriage, immigration law, race and growing up, from comic episodes to sad ones.
Who wrote Mrs. Spring Fragrance and when?
Sui Sin Far writes these tales of Chinese life, family affection and encounters across cultures.
Who is Mrs. Spring Fragrance?
She is the cheerful wife of a Seattle merchant in the title story and in The Inferior Woman. She is clever, speaks fluent English, helps young lovers and plans to write a book about Americans.
The author
Sui Sin Far
1865–1914 · Chinese-Canadian short story writer
Sui Sin Far was the pen name of Edith Maude Eaton, a Canadian writer born in England in 1865. She grew up in Montreal and later lived in the United States. She wrote journalism and short stories. Her collection Mrs. Spring Fragrance appeared in 1912. She died in Montreal in 1914.
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