A rediscovered classic of linked short stories set in San Francisco's Chinatown, portraying Chinese Americans as they fall in love, encounter racism, and wrestle with their new, hyphenated identities-a century before writers like Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan. Set in early twentieth-century Chinatown, Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Other Writings is the story of Chinese men and women living in the United States as they wrestle with prejudice and forced detention; choose to become wholly Americanized or stay true to their cultural heritage; meet both kind and predatory Americans; and find love, purpose, and understanding within their families. By turns ironic and heart-rending, these stories are windows into the lives of everyday people in an unforgiving, often racist city who find solidarity and hope in the most unexpected places.

Edith Maude Eaton (1865–1914), who took the pen name Sui Sin Far, was the first Asian American, man or woman, to publish fiction in the United States. The daughter of a Chinese mother and an English father, Eaton began publishing articles about Montreal’s Chinese Canadian community in English-language newspapers at twenty-five. At thirty-three she moved to the United States, and, asserting her identity as a Chinese American writer (despite her ability to “pass” as white), published stories about Chinese Americans at a time when the United States Congress banned Chinese immigration to the United States.