PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A legal brawl could be brewing over a long-lost manuscript of Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth," which surfaced in a sale tied to her former secretary's family.

An auction house called the FBI upon its discovery, and U.S. officials gave the typed manuscript of the Nobel and Pulitzer prizewinner's most famous work to her heirs, her seven adopted children.

But at least two foundations with links to the writer, who died in 1973, now hope to share in the discovery. A board that represent's Buck's West Virginia birthplace has stepped foreward to claim the valuable papers, charging that Buck left all her manuscripts to the site in a 1970 legal document.

"She said her intent was to provide these as a source of funds if (they were) ever needed to maintain her mother's home," said lawyer Steve Hunter, who represents the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace in tiny Hillsboro.

And Pearl S. Buck International, a cultural nonprofit Buck founded at her Bucks County, Pennsylvania, farmhouse, also has an interest in the manuscript. The group had reached an agreement with the heirs to display it for several months later this year while the children retained ownership, according to family lawyer Peter Hearn.

The legal affidavit related to Buck's birthplace was signed and notarized on Oct. 15, 1970, and filed on March 21, 1973, two weeks after Buck died.

In the document, Buck estimated the value of her collection of manuscripts at $650,000 (euro470,400) to $1 million (euro720,000), although she called them "priceless to me."

She lists scores of documents she was giving to the birthplace, including "'The Good Earth' manuscript, the exact location of which is unknown."

"The Good Earth," follows the life of a peasant farmer in pre-Revolutionary China as he marries, accumulates wealth and experiences both success and heartache. Buck, the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries, lived mostly in China through age 40.

The novel won the Pulitzer Price in 1932, and helped earn Buck the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938.

Janet L. Mintzer, chief executive of Pearl S. Buck International, said the West Virginia document may contradict a will filed in Vermont, where Buck died, that left her papers to her estate.

The foundation -- which Buck founded in 1964 to help Amerasian children and others -- is located at Buck's farmhouse in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where she wrote many of her later works.

Mintzer still plans to announce Tuesday the agreement her group has forged with the heirs, calling for the manuscript to be displayed in Pennsylvania.

"It's awesome to have recovered it and to share it with the public would be a great thing," said Mintzer, who feared that few people would see it in West Virginia.

Hunter said he spoke with U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan in Philadelphia late last month about the manuscript, only to learn that Meehan's office no longer had it. The FBI had recovered the well-kept, 400-page manuscript in June, after the daughter of one of the author's former secretaries tried to put it up for auction. No charges were filed against the daughter.

"I suspect Ms. Buck knew where it was," said Hunter. "She (the secretary) had been with her a long time, and she didn't want to create a situation."

Edgar S. Walsh, the administrator of his mother's estate, said Monday that he was unfamiliar with the birthplace's claims to the manuscript and declined comment.