Eileen Chang is now recognized as one of the greatest modern Chinese writers, though she was completely erased from official histories in mainland China. These previously unpublished, semi-autobiographical novels depict in gripping detail her childhood years in Tianjin and Shanghai, as well as her student days in Hong Kong during World War II, and shed light on the construction of selfhood in her other novels.

"The Fall of the Pagoda begins as a comedy of manners and gradually evolves into a gothic thriller… Contradictions and aberrations are the norm in Lute’s family. This is a household immersed in a decaying grandeur amid the intoxicating smell of opium, but it never hesitates to pursue new and exotic things from automobiles to movies. Desolation and decadence rule. Lute’s father indulges himself in debauchery while her mother could not wait to become a Nora of New China. Nevertheless, both share the disposition to squander family fortune ruthlessly; children are their last concern. The Russian Revolution, the creation of Manchukuo, and the Second Sino-Japanese War take place one after another in the novel, but except for momentary disturbances, nothing affects the family which is already engulfed by its own corruption." — From the Introduction by David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University