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The Buccaneers

by Edith Wharton, Marion Mainwaring

3.89 · Rating Details · 4,667 Ratings · 322 Reviews

Nan and Jinny St George have both wealth and beauty in generous supply. In the New York society of the 1870s, however, only those with old money can achieve the status of the elite, and it is here that the sisters seem doomed to failure.

Nan's new governess, Laura Testvalley, herself an outsider, takes pity on their plight and launches them instead on the unsuspecting Briti ...more

Paperback, 406 pages

Published October 1st 1994 by Penguin Books (first published 1938)

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Jun 25, 2016 Candi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics-shelf, historical-fiction, favorites

"First, the Romans had come. Then the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons. Then the Danes terrorized England for three centuries. Norman pirates took the country over in 1066. Five centuries later Turks raided the Thames and took prisoners to sell in the Libyan slave-market… But never had there been any phenomenon to match this… – this ‘invasion of England by American women and their chiefs of commissariat, the silent American men’…"

This is by no means a high seas adventure story and you won’t find any sw "First, the Romans had come. Then the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons. Then the Danes terrorized England for three centuries. Norman pirates took the country over in 1066. Five centuries later Turks raided the Thames and took prisoners to sell in the Libyan slave-market… But never had there been any phenomenon to match this… – this ‘invasion of England by American women and their chiefs of commissariat, the silent American men’…"

This is by no means a high seas adventure story and you won’t find any swashbuckling pirates within these pages. What you will find is a delightful and wholly absorbing story about a group of ‘new rich’ young ladies and their struggle to attain social status and suitable husbands in the complex society of 1870’s New York. Annabel St. George, her sister Virginia, Lizzy and Mabel Elmsworth, and Conchita Closson will find that they just don’t quite fit into the highest of social circles. Rather than vacationing at the fashionable Newport, they find themselves strolling the verandahs of the apparently less exclusive Saratoga – much to the dismay of their overly ambitious and scheming mothers.

Thank goodness for the likes of Miss Laura Testvalley who has been hired as governess to Annabel, or Nan. Miss Testvalley is a godsend indeed – more than just a teacher of letters, manners and music, she will help Nan navigate the tricky and unmerciful currents of her society. Nan is not your ordinary social ladder-climbing young woman. She is romantic and clever and has hopes and dreams beyond that of a marriage made simply with the goal of achieving rank and wealth. I do believe Miss Testvalley sees her own reflection in the young eyes of Nan. Miss Testvalley’s background and link to an impoverished family may not match that of Nan’s upbringing, but in those things that matter most in life – those of the mind and of the heart – Miss Testvalley is a true champion. I simply adored her steadfast affection and support of Nan and her well-being.

Now, when one doesn’t quite succeed amongst the fierce competition of young ladies in New York society, there is one solution – England. At a time when many of the British aristocracy still upheld their titles and legacy but lacked the funds to sufficiently maintain their lands and other holdings, new money from overseas was perhaps just the ticket to preserving such heritage. And now behold ‘the buccaneers’ – our young ladies from New York. Can they – and their superficial mothers – achieve what they intensely desire in this country? There now exists a whole new set of rules and customs to which they must conform. Nan finds herself in love with the land and the sense of history which it invokes. Maybe finally this is a place in which she can find true happiness.

"It was not the atmosphere of London but of England which had gradually filled her veins and penetrated to her heart. She thought of the thinness of the mental and moral air in her own home: the noisy quarrels about nothing, the paltry preoccupations, her mother’s feverish interest in the fashions and follies of a society which had always ignored her. At least life in England had a background, layers and layers of rich deep background, of history, poetry, old traditional observances, beautiful houses, beautiful landscapes, beautiful ancient buildings, palaces, churches, cathedrals. Would it not be possible, in some mysterious way, to create for oneself a life out of all this richness, a life which would somehow make up for the poverty of one’s personal lot?"

But what is a girl to do when presented with the attentions of Guy Thwarte – landholder and heir to Honourslove, a place towards which Nan feels herself somehow immediately attached, or the Duke of Tintagel – owner of the romantic and historical castle of Tintagel, a place steeped in the legends of King Arthur. How this plays out, you will have to find out for yourself! You will most likely root for Nan with as much devotion as did I and Miss Testvalley. You will nod in agreement with Edith Wharton’s subtle and witty scorn towards the customs and demands of both the New York upper crust as well as the British aristocracy. You will fall in love with the elegant prose which Wharton displays so flawlessly.

One important note regarding this novel which did not in the least affect my desire to read it – Edith Wharton passed away prior to finishing writing this. My version included an ending completed by Marion Mainwaring, a Wharton scholar. I was not able to distinguish a difference in writing style between the words of Wharton versus Mainwaring, but then I am not by any means a Wharton scholar, but simply an amateur reader who thoroughly appreciated the effort put forth by Mainwaring. However, I can’t help but wish that Wharton had survived to see this novel through to completion. One will never know exactly how she intended for this to end, but I was nevertheless quite satisfied.
...more

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Aug 07, 2015 Sara rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, american-classics

The Buccaneers is Edith Wharton’s last and uncompleted novel. She had written approximately 89,000 words before her death and the novel was printed in its incomplete form by her publisher. In 1993 Marion Mainwaring, a noted Wharton scholar, completed the story, in line with notes that Wharton had left behind. She did a good job, since there is no obvious break in the voice between the beginning of the book and the end, but it seems clear to me that no one, even a great scholar, could ever know e The Buccaneers is Edith Wharton’s last and uncompleted novel. She had written approximately 89,000 words before her death and the novel was printed in its incomplete form by her publisher. In 1993 Marion Mainwaring, a noted Wharton scholar, completed the story, in line with notes that Wharton had left behind. She did a good job, since there is no obvious break in the voice between the beginning of the book and the end, but it seems clear to me that no one, even a great scholar, could ever know exactly how Wharton would have ended her work. If someone was going to guess, I think Mainwaring was a good choice, but I can’t help wishing Wharton could have done it herself and that it were as pure a Wharton as The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth.

Despite this, The Buccaneers is a masterful work of fiction, set in Wharton’s high-society world, and full of the angst and manipulation that makes me happy for just a moment not to have been among the fabulously wealthy, well-married women of the time. Love and marriage do not go together like a horse and carriage in Wharton’s world. Marriage is mostly an institution of convenience and profit, you get a name and I get money, and woe to the romantically inclined girl who stumbles into this world of harsh reality unawares.

It is the reality behind the mask in a Wharton that makes it so worthwhile to read her. She strips the conventions to the bone and calls them by name. She exposes what people are willing to do and become in an effort to climb a social ladder, where someone else is always contriving to knock them off or at least kick them down a rung. And, she is superbly adept at lending light to the less affluent who have to circle in this world and navigate its waters. One of her finest characters in The Buccaneers is Miss Laura Testvalley, a governess who knows her place and sees the world without any rose-colored glasses, but whose caring heart cannot resist loving and aiding her charge, Annabel St. George (Nan).

There is always the beauty of Wharton’s descriptive writing that would, alone, make me wish to read this book: It was dark when Folyat House loomed high and stately in Portman Square, light shining from its long rows of windows and torches flaming at the grand portal. Footmen jumped down from the barouche which had met the travelers at Paddington, opened the escutcheoned doors, and helped them out. Other footmen led them up steps and into an oval colonnaded lobby. The Glenloe girls’ eyes widened as the groom-of-the-chambers, attended by yet other footmen, conducted them into a great rectangular hall through an arch at the opposite end.” When I read that,I feel I am one of the Glenloe girls and can see the glamour of the hall and the bustle of the footmen providing their services to the titled and privileged in a stoic and efficient manner.

I loved seeing the five girls (who are the buccaneers) transform from innocent pawns in the game to active players. In the beginning, they are primarily spurred on by ambitious mothers, while they are, themselves, just happy to have a good time and attract the attention of the men. By the end, they are among the ones pulling the strings and conniving for power, and the wheat is separated from the chaff, as they say.

They change, even toward one another. “Virginia, who had seemed to Annabel so secure, so aloof, so disdainful of everything but her own pleasures, but who, as Lady Seadown, was enslaved to that dull half-sleeping Seadown, absorbed in questions of rank and precedence, and in awe--actually in awe--of her father-in-law’s stupid arrogance…”

Finally, they are seen, even by their husbands as pirates, conquerors, rulers who come to rule by stealth:
”What a gang of buccaneers you are!” he breathed to his wife.
“Buccaneers,” Lizzy reminded him gently, “were not notorious for paying fortunes for what they took.”

Several of these girls do pay heavily for what they take, and they pay more than money. Those who fail to toe society’s line pay a price and lose a lot, but those who adhere to it pay almost as much, if not more. Wharton does not traffic in happily ever after in her novels--people die, they are ruined, they are impoverished. I personally see the hand of Mainwaring in this novel most heavily in the lightness of the penalties exacted. I believe Wharton would have visited a harsher punishment on her characters in the end. She was unflinching when portraying the viciousness of society. She had seen it in her lifetime. She knew the costs. You need only think of Lily Bart to know that she did. I can’t help wondering, had fate allowed Wharton to finish this novel, if my dear Nan and Laura Testvalley would have been spared.
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Apr 10, 2009 Sarah rated it it was amazing

I've fallen in love, readers!

It took me about 12 hours from start to finish to read the last of Wharton's novels, left unfinished for decades and then completed in Wharton's style by scholar Marion Mainwaring. As I mentioned earlier, I've watched the PBS series three times now and there's something about it that gets to me. Perhaps because it's sexier and funnier and looser than what one would expect from the era, and because [SPOILER ALERT:] its ending which actually arises from Wharton's notes I've fallen in love, readers!

It took me about 12 hours from start to finish to read the last of Wharton's novels, left unfinished for decades and then completed in Wharton's style by scholar Marion Mainwaring. As I mentioned earlier, I've watched the PBS series three times now and there's something about it that gets to me. Perhaps because it's sexier and funnier and looser than what one would expect from the era, and because [SPOILER ALERT:] its ending which actually arises from Wharton's notes, is decidedly un-Whartonian. I'm terribly moved by the idea that at the end of her life, Edith Wharton would decide to write a novel about a heroine who behaves in the exact opposite way of nearly all her other major characters, who--to put it quite frankly--doesn't give a shit about social convention and flouts it utterly. I like to think of it as the author's reconciliation to romance, her final, deathbed middle finger to the rules and hierarchies with which she had such a deeply-tortured relationships.

Reading The Buccaneers is a dream for those who like comedies-of-manners for their own sake. Wharton will never be Austen: she takes ten lines to explain the social relationships that Austen dispatches with a sentence (this, I think, is evidence of Wharton's psychic struggle with society). But the first two thirds of the book, written by Wharton without revision, each page dropped off the side of her bed as she finished it, are blithe, satirical, sexy and both funny and sad.

The many scenes where the characters forge connections over poetry and art as well Nan St. George's stifling marriage and post-marital sexual awakening make me feel as though this is Wharton's Persuasion. And like that novel and other novels with heavy autobiographical elements--Copperfield, The Song of the Lark, etc. it has an emotional immediacy that feels startling and gives it a value different from a more controlled, classically perfect novel.

Wharton's contrast of Laura Testevalley, who gives up on romance and sacrifices her chance of happiness so that Nan can run away with Guy Thwarte, and Nan, who finds happiness with Guy after having giving up on it in her role as duchess, fascinates: one feels that Wharton is both Laura, in middle age loosening her scruple, and Nan herself.

Mainwaring's best contributions are a number of concluding love scenes that are satisfying (if not as satisfying as the wheat-field fornication in the film ;)) and a deft weaving-in of the horribly sexist divorce laws of the time that existed to punish women, humiliate them, and treat them as property. Marital rape is legal, and Nan's refusal to "produce heirs" for her huband after becoming emotionally estranged from him is a pivotal plot point.

This was definitely the best read I've embarked on in a while. I couldn't recommend it enough for Wharton fans who have long desired a less "thwarted" ending for her characters. I'd add that picturing Greg Wise in the romantic leading role definitely added a lot to the reading experience.

http://unpretentiouslitcrit.blogspot.... ...more

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Mar 28, 2014 Madeline rated it liked it

I found a copy of this book in a used bookstore, and hesitated before finally caving and buying it. I loved The Age of Innocence, but (as I learned from reading the book jacket while in the store) The Buccaneers is unfinished. Wharton wrote about 89,000 words of the story before dying in 1937, and Wharton scholar Marion Mainwaring picked up where the book left off and finished the novel. There's a note at the end about how Mainwaring made some changes to Wharton's draft to account for later chan I found a copy of this book in a used bookstore, and hesitated before finally caving and buying it. I loved The Age of Innocence, but (as I learned from reading the book jacket while in the store) The Buccaneers is unfinished. Wharton wrote about 89,000 words of the story before dying in 1937, and Wharton scholar Marion Mainwaring picked up where the book left off and finished the novel. There's a note at the end about how Mainwaring made some changes to Wharton's draft to account for later changes in the story (and she also removed some hella racist language), but for the most part, the first two thirds of the book are primarily Wharton's. I don't like the idea of reading unfinished stories, and I can't decide what irks me more: an unfinished novel like Suite Francaise, which didn't have an ending because Irene Nemirovsky died before she could finish it; or The Buccaneers, where another author is brought in to complete the draft. Either way, it makes for a frustrating experience.

That being said, Mainwaring does a pretty good job of continuing Wharton's novel, to the point where I couldn't tell where Wharton's writing ended and Mainwaring's began. Maybe if I was a more experienced Wharton reader I would have noticed discrepancies, but as far as I was concerned, it was a solid story.

The story opens in 1876 New York, where "new money" sisters Virginia and Annebel St. George are preparing to find husbands. They find that they can't compete with the old money families of New York, and, after one of their friends marries an English lord who was visiting America, decide to follow her to England. Guided by their British governess, Laura Testvalley, the girls make their mark on the London social scene. Two more American sisters join the St. George girls, and their group becomes known as "the buccaneers," fortune-hunting Americans invading London to snatch up all the eligible lords and dukes. Each of the four American girls ends up marrying into the aristocracy, with varied success.

The story wasn't as tightly constructed or engrossing as The Age of Innocence, but I still loved reading Wharton's perspective on the shallowness and complexity of high society in the 1800's. She also makes it clear, without needing to slam it in your face, how much it sucked to be a woman in this world. The two most engrossing characters were Miss Testvalley, a confirmed spinster who's given up all hope of finding a husband and throws herself into the job of finding good marriages for her charges; and Annabel St. George, who ends up making the best marriage and is completely miserable. Her efforts to make the best of her circumstances, knowing that she's completely trapped in this life that she chose, were heartbreaking and beautiful.

"To begin with, what had caused Annabel St. George to turn into Annabel Tintagel? That was the central problem! Yet how could she solve it, when she could no longer question that elusive Annabel St. George, who was still so near to her, yet as remote and unapproachable as a plaintive ghost?
Yes - a ghost. That was it. Annabel St. George was dead, and would therefore never be able to find out why and how that mysterious change had come about. ...
'The greatest mistake,' she mused, her chin resting on her clasped hands, her eyes fixed unseeingly on the dim reaches of the park, 'the greatest mistake is to think that we ever know why we do things. ...I suppose the nearest we can ever come to it is by getting what old people call "experience." But by the time we've got that we
re no longer the person who did the things we no longer understand. The trouble is, I suppose, that we change every moment; and the things we did stay." ...more

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Aug 13, 2011 Misfit rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The St. George and Elmsworth families are *new money* and looking for brighter prospects for their daughters in the marriage market so they hie off to England looking for Dukes and Earl with aging homes in need repairs that only cold hard cash can bring them. The young ladies make their splash, make their marriages and then no surprise, have to lie in those beds that they've made for themselves. Some are successful, others not so - despite a very promising beginning.

"But it's rather lonely some ...more

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Sep 12, 2008 Jessica rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: 18+

Shelves: fiction, classics

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Books like this are so very difficult to review. I felt so deeply for Nan and I could understand how she felt and what she thought. Indeed, I could relate to her very well as her thinking process is similiar to mine.

My problem with the book is that in the end she makes a choice. When you read it it seems like a good choice. You want her to live and love. You want her to live happily ever after, to be with the man that she is passionately in love with.

And in most stories that would be wonderful ...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Dawn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The synopsis for this 1938 edition for The Buccaneers (appearing above) is completely wrong! Who wrote that?! No swashbuckling pirates, here! Edith Wharton's "novel" was published as a lightly edited, incomplete manuscript in the year following her death. It was sure to have been her masterpiece!
The "Buccaneers" are 5 nouveau riche American girls who, steered by an English-Italian (cousin to artist/poet D.G. Rosetti) governess, "invade" the Bristish peerage in the 'seventies (1870's).
While later ...more

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Aug 31, 2014 Terry ~ Huntress of Erudition rated it it was amazing

See discussion in the Reading for Pleasure group/Buddy Reads/July 2016

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Dec 17, 2008 RunRachelRun rated it really liked it

Shelves: all-time-favorites, classics

Oh my God, if someone could resurrect the dead and had enough magic potion for one person, I would choose Madame Wharton. It devastates me that even if I visit the "W" shelf at the library a million times over, as if I were a pilgrim visiting a holy shrine, on my bleeding and torn knees, there will never be a new Wharton book propped there for me to read for the very first time. I guess I should be grateful that there are authors out there who inspire such devotion, dead or otherwise.

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Aug 06, 2012 Eliza rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Ce roman riche et foisonnant reprend le thème très prisé par Henry James de la rencontre entre la nouvelle Amérique et la vieille Europe. Cette opposition est encore renforcée par le choix de personnages féminins pour les Américains et de personnages presque exclusivement masculins pour les Anglais. Edith Wharton ne s’intéresse d’ailleurs que peu aux hommes dans ce récit, excepté les Thwarte, père et fils, confidents et amis respectifs de Miss Testvalley et d’Annabelle. Le roman se divise en qua Ce roman riche et foisonnant reprend le thème très prisé par Henry James de la rencontre entre la nouvelle Amérique et la vieille Europe. Cette opposition est encore renforcée par le choix de personnages féminins pour les Américains et de personnages presque exclusivement masculins pour les Anglais. Edith Wharton ne s’intéresse d’ailleurs que peu aux hommes dans ce récit, excepté les Thwarte, père et fils, confidents et amis respectifs de Miss Testvalley et d’Annabelle. Le roman se divise en quatre parties, chacune distante des autres de quelques années. On suit donc l’évolution de ces cinq jeunes filles pendant une période assez longue, qui permet à l’auteur de nous décrire la suite de ces mariages.
La rigidité des règles de la vie sociale constituent cette fois encore le ciment de l’histoire. Qu’il s’agisse de faire son entrée dans le monde, d’être courtisée ou bien encore de son comportement avec son mari, les héroïnes sont sans cesse confrontées à ce qu’elles devraient faire ou à la façon dont elles devraient agir, en vertu de règles ancestrales établies par la bonne société. Leur nationalité leur confère un statut d’étrangères qui les rend très hermétiques à ce code de bonne conduite. Cette excuse permet à Edith Wharton de montrer combien ces règles peuvent s’avérer nocives pour l’épanouissement d’un caractère fragile et irréconciliables avec la violence des sentiments à laquelle nous pouvons tous être confrontés. Chez Edith Wharton, il semblerait bien que la complexité de la vie se reflète dans les destins souvent tragiques de ses héroïnes. Pourtant, le destin des Boucanières est bien moins dramatique que celui de Lily Bart dans Chez les heureux du monde. Toutes ne connaîtront pas la déception d’Annabelle et la fin du roman nous offre quelques beaux exemples d’entente conjugale.
Ce roman a été plus qu’un coup de cœur : il entre sans conteste dans la short-list de mes romans préférés. Bruissement de robes, propos frivoles et éclats de rire en cascade ne parviennent pas à masquer la révolte d’Edith Wharton face à un monde corseté dans lequel elle ne s’est jamais retrouvée. La richesse de ce roman, l’exubérance de ses personnages et la palette des émotions qui s’y déploient, sous la plume claire et élégante de l’auteur, en font un moment de lecture incomparable. ...more

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Oct 12, 2011 Lobstergirl rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: plovers

Shelves: own, fiction

It's the 1870s, and the daughters of New York City's nouveau riche are being scorned by their social superiors. They are forced to vacation at Saratoga because they haven't gotten invitations to Newport. A clueless father humiliates his family by ensconcing them in a house on shlubby Madison Avenue rather than chic Fifth. Rejected at home, the four daughters set out for England to snare them some aristocratic husbands. They are the buccaneers.

Four stars for the portion Wharton wrote, which co-au
It's the 1870s, and the daughters of New York City's nouveau riche are being scorned by their social superiors. They are forced to vacation at Saratoga because they haven't gotten invitations to Newport. A clueless father humiliates his family by ensconcing them in a house on shlubby Madison Avenue rather than chic Fifth. Rejected at home, the four daughters set out for England to snare them some aristocratic husbands. They are the buccaneers.

Four stars for the portion Wharton wrote, which co-author Marion Mainwaring tells us is about 89,000 words. One star for the concluding chapters, written by Mainwaring. It just goes to show: Wharton is really, really difficult to copy, in every way: plotting, tone, style, idiom. Mainwaring's addendum was dull and clunky, like so much of random historical fiction. I don't know where the 89,000 word division came in the text, yet there was a point where I suddenly noticed that the Wharton magic was gone. Not coincidentally, it was accompanied by the types of romantic interactions between characters that Wharton would only hint at, but a modern writer would spell out for you.

I want to get hold of the 1938 edition, which doesn't contain Mainwaring's concluding chapters, and also contains the racial language Mainwaring removed for fear it would offend modern readers. The 1993 text is full of words like brown, and dusky, and someone sends a telegram inquiring about her future daughter-in-law: "Is she black?"

The bowdlerization left a bad taste in my mouth. Fear of offending should never cause words to be changed or passages to be excised.

Jottings:
I'm a little alarmed. Yes, another author finished this uncompleted work by Wharton. But it would be nice to see where Wharton's work ends and Mainwaring's begins. Also, the text is bowdlerized: some nasty racial language has apparently been removed. Now I'm going to have to read the 1938 edition to find out what Wharton really wrote. Finally, there is no attribution of the cover art. Big no-no! It's the Acheson Sisters, by John Singer Sargent, hanging at Chatsworth House. ...more

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Apr 30, 2015 Janez Hočevar rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library-books, classics, novel, american, fiction

The content of The Buccaneers could well and wholly be summed up by the French proverb "L'argent ne fait pas le bonheur." Neither do the titles of nobility and everything that goes with it.
Wharton's choice of theme for this novel is twofold. First, it shows the collision of two civilisations, where the world of the blase British nobility, considered by itself to be the pinnacle of the excellence, is invaded by the American parvenus. This would be of no importance if the American intruders weren' ...more

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Jul 24, 2010 Judy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Although this novel is unfinished and Wharton would have done a lot of revision, there is still a lot of her wonderful prose and it is very interesting to see her looking back at the 1870s from the 1930s, which in places allow her to be sexually franker than she could in her earlier works. The novel centres on a group of young American women who marry British men and struggle to fit into British high society, and there are some powerfully-drawn characters, including the heroine, Annabel ("Nan"), ...more

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Jan 29, 2017 eghzarw rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Отличная книга, тот самый Толстый Роман для зимних вечеров, не очень быстрый, не очень медленный. Мог бы быть и толще, но, как известно, закончить его не успели. Ужасно жаль (по ощущениям, там не хватает еще примерно трети), но лучше уж так, чем с переработками и домыслами эпигонов. Оказалось, что единственным способом добыть оригинальный текст является покупка раннего издания конца 30х.

Эдит Уортон пишет о британской аристократии очень похоже на Исигуро: с уважением и порой восхищением, но все- Отличная книга, тот самый Толстый Роман для зимних вечеров, не очень быстрый, не очень медленный. Мог бы быть и толще, но, как известно, закончить его не успели. Ужасно жаль (по ощущениям, там не хватает еще примерно трети), но лучше уж так, чем с переработками и домыслами эпигонов. Оказалось, что единственным способом добыть оригинальный текст является покупка раннего издания конца 30х.

Эдит Уортон пишет о британской аристократии очень похоже на Исигуро: с уважением и порой восхищением, но все-таки _снаружи_, как почтительный наблюдатель. И это очень правильно, потому что большинство POW-рассказчиков тоже пришли извне: гувернантка, Аннабелл, даже Гай после долгого отсутствия чувствует себя посторонним.

В известном смысле этот роман -- приквел к The Age of Innocence: там вышедшая замуж в Европу американка возвращается домой, тут стайка американских красавиц отправляется на охоту за женихами в Великобританию. Теперь я жалею, что смотрела сериал с его дурацкими выдумками, но, с другой стороны, там столько наверчено нового и чуждого книге, что это практически разные истории, слегка объединенные именами героев и общим сюжетом. ...more

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Apr 22, 2008 Laura rated it really liked it

Shelves: classic, american-lit

Lots of fun and often overlooked, this chronicles the marriage prospects of four daughters of nouveau riche Americans who hope to land cash-poor English aristocrats. After all, new fortunes can’t buy entrance to New York society, but the doors have to swing wide open if the families can boast a duke for an in-law. But can a titled marriage bring happiness? Of course not (at least not always), but the individual journeys make for great reading.

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Apr 25, 2010 Annette added it

This book was finished by another author and frankly I just skimmed at end. I love Edith Wharton's writing but I think it was a mistake to let someone else finish this book. I thought the difference in writing styles was very obvious and it was a big let-down. The writing that I take to be Mainwaring's reads like a bad period romance.

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Jun 11, 2010 skein rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2-star, rrrrromance-novels

I hardly feel this book can be classified as an Edith Wharton -- she died before it was completed, and apparently even before it was fleshed out. The complete-r, one Marion Mainwaring (writing in 1993), stews the final chapters with injudicious parentheses, romance-novel prose (Nan is "a flower unfolding ... a rose in bloom") and exclamation points galore. God help us all.

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Mar 31, 2016 Brian Poole rated it really liked it

The Buccaneers proved to be an interesting bookend for the career of Edith Wharton.

Wharton had completed about two-thirds of The Buccaneers when she died in 1937. For decades, it appeared in “unfinished” form. But in the early ‘90s, Wharton expert Marion Mainwaring completed the book, based on Wharton’s own high level synopsis.

The Buccaneers proved to be an apt companion piece to Wharton’s most famous novel, The Age of Innocence. Set in the same time period, it focused on a group of “new money” ...more

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Jul 08, 2013 Susan rated it liked it

The Buccaneers is a romantic anti-romance novel, if that makes any sense. Five young American daughters of fortunate financial speculators, finding themselves excluded from the crustiest New York society, begin to marry into an extended family of English nobility. As attractive as marrying into the top tier of society initially seems, navigating their responsibilities to ancestral mansions, families and tenants brings unhappiness, particularly for the youngest, Nan, who has married a duke who wa ...more

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Jun 30, 2010 Jenn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I really enjoyed reading this book and found it to be a very fast read. I was interested in it because I watched the BBC dramatization - which was heavily Americanized & modernized as it turns out. My chief exposure to Edith Wharton was the very short and quite depressing "Ethan Frome." I found that to be written in quite an impenetrable style and was turned off of her for years - until I saw the film and came across a copy of the book in a used bookstore.

The way she writes in "The Buccaneer ...more

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Jun 07, 2011 Hilary Hicklin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

As is quite often the case, Wharton's later work doesn't quite measure up to her earlier masterpieces, such as Ethan Frome, which is what I would recommend to anyone new to this writer, and being her last (unfinished) novel it lacks the polish of her other books. Marion Mainwaring has done a pretty good job of completing it though.

Wharton has fun exposing the petty snobberies of New York society as well as the pointless traditions of the British class system, as when the Dowager Duchess of Tint ...more

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Feb 12, 2014 Galileosong rated it liked it

I have mixed feelings about this book. Edith Wharton is exceptionally skilled in describing interactions with people. She could write about the most boring subjects and still keep you enchanted with her writing.

The story in itself is not that thrilling or exciting, but I could not put the book down because of of how well it was written. However, near the last third of the book, completed by a different author, this changes. Gone are the beautiful descriptions and the story turns into some kind ...more

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Jul 08, 2016 Ariel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2016, personal-collection-wishlist

I couldn't put this down last night; review to come.

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May 26, 2016 Lori rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, classics, buddy-group-reads

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I absolutely loved this book! This story of five young American girls unfolds beautifully from the very beginning. My copy was completed by Marion Mainwaring and it is lighter fare than Wharton's other novels. That said, I felt that Mainwaring did a decent job of completing Wharton's novel and I found the story and the characters very engaging. I always love a 19th century backdrop and the settings in New York and the English countryside did not disappoint.

The story centers around Annabel St. G I absolutely loved this book! This story of five young American girls unfolds beautifully from the very beginning. My copy was completed by Marion Mainwaring and it is lighter fare than Wharton's other novels. That said, I felt that Mainwaring did a decent job of completing Wharton's novel and I found the story and the characters very engaging. I always love a 19th century backdrop and the settings in New York and the English countryside did not disappoint.

The story centers around Annabel St. George, or "Nan" and an English aristocrat, Guy Thwarte. Their story is extraordinary! The other girls marry but romance and beauty begins to fade from their lives as social advancement and financial worries overtake their dreams. Nan, who was not considered the "beauty" of this little band of "buccaneers" is the one who, unexpectedly finds love in the end.

I love the way Wharton weaves a thread of beauty and art throughout this story. Nan's governess, Miss Testvalley, is cousin to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, an artist. I don't believe the poetry and paintings sprinkled throughout this story are meant to be just part of the scenery. I can't help thinking that Wharton wanted her readers to think of love as art:

"He smiled. 'I don't know. I suppose, if one were married to a woman one adored, one would soon get beyond her beauty. That's the way I feel about Honourslove. It's in my bones."
"Oh, then you understand!" she exclaimed.
"Understand---?"
Nan coloured a little; the words had slipped out. "I mean about the beyondness of things. I know there's no such word."
"There's such a feeling. When two people have reached it together it's--well, they are 'beyond.'" He broke off. "You see now why I wanted you to come to Honourslove," he said in an odd new voice."

As I read this book, I kept looking for the "beyondness" of things. Life is beautiful when we don't complicate it. Love is beautiful when we follow our hearts. The heart is utterly crucial to this story and the heart is the very center of who Nan is. I smiled when Nan declared, "I can imagine being in love at 60."

Wharton's prose is always as brilliant as it is beautiful. This is a lovely story and it gets five stars from me.
...more

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Jun 21, 2016 Hannah rated it liked it · review of another edition

The Buccaneers is about four American women in the 1870's who go to England where they marry and must acclimate to the English lifestyle. The story is centrally about Nan St. George, but there are also snippets about her sister and their two friends. Reading the book made me feel like I was attending a party where we were gossiping about other people because most of the action happened off the page. The first American lady, Conchita, meets an English lord and in the next chapter they're engaged. The Buccaneers is about four American women in the 1870's who go to England where they marry and must acclimate to the English lifestyle. The story is centrally about Nan St. George, but there are also snippets about her sister and their two friends. Reading the book made me feel like I was attending a party where we were gossiping about other people because most of the action happened off the page. The first American lady, Conchita, meets an English lord and in the next chapter they're engaged. You completely missed the wooing. It made the whole book very impersonal.

The other jarring note is that Edith Wharton never actually completed the book. She died, leaving behind an outline. She had written 300 pages or so, but the last 100 was written by someone else who had followed the directions. I think that they did well, but there was more emotion and drama that made it noticeable to be from a different person. Also, some of the conclusions rang hollow. Edith's story line was vague, side characters were just going to interwoven into the narrative. But I think some of the conclusions that the author invented were odd. For example, one of the husbands comes home and has a scene with his wife where he confesses that he's ill. She says that he better spend the night but be gone before the children are awake. WHY? Why can't he see his children? Where was THAT explained?

The idea behind the story is very interesting. American women who had money but no prestige in America married English men who had prestige but no money. It highlighted the prejudices that these women faced and the extreme expectations that they were under as they took their place in British society. It's brought home by Miss March who came to England to be married, but was jilted. She stayed and is often used in the book as a bridge between the two worlds with both sides constantly wanting her to translate "customs" from the other side.

It was not my favorite Edith Wharton book, though I think it was her most autobiographical. I would recommend that you watch the mini-series instead. ...more

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Feb 20, 2012 Hilary rated it liked it

Shelves: 2012

Edith Wharton left this novel unfinished at her death, and Marion Mainwaring finished it decades later. I was sailing on toward a 4-5 star rating until I reached that unfortunate transition. Wharton's beginning was wonderful, full of lively descriptions not only of the characters and their thought processes, but also of period elements that make books so enlightening. Mainwaring is a Wharton scholar, from my understanding, and while I'm glad she made it possible for this gem to be published more ...more

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Jul 17, 2016 Lynn rated it it was ok

I have to begin with the fact that I listened to this on audio and did not realize until the end that it was only Edith Whaton's original edition and did not include the updated chapters added by Marion Mainwaring in the 1990's. Although, by the time I reached the end, I was happy to stop, and there was a quick summary included of what Whaton had planned for the ending before her death. I could appreciate the writing, but this isn't my type of book; I read it only because it was a book club sele ...more

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Jun 08, 2010 Amanda rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction-modern, partially-read

I give this book a qualified four stars. The qualification? Don't finish it. I only read the first two-thirds of the book when it suddenly became apparent where Wharton left off and Mainwaring took over. I almost stopped reading this book at the very beginning when I first realized it was finished by another author, but I decided I would give it a try anyhow. The part written by Wharton is excellent, but Mainwaring replaces all of Wharton's subtleties and wit with jarring observations that revea ...more

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Mar 21, 2015 Devyn Duffy rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: fans of novels about people and society

The usual story of high society and people trying to make the best of it. As an unfinished novel completed by a Wharton scholar, it's nearly seamless. The ending does feel rushed and isn't what I would have chosen, but it's apparently true to what Wharton had planned and it does make sense. Although stories like these are plot-driven, they succeed or fail by their characters, and this story has some interesting ones. Best yet, no one in the story is really a villain, even though most of them do ...more

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Jun 03, 2016 classic reverie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: wharton, romance, american-writer, 1900, bildungsroman, own

An unfinished work finished with class.

I was wondering how this unfinished novel of Wharton would read with a modern writer taking up the task & I was pleased with it but kept wondering how Edith would have ended it. I loved this story & found the governess a memorable character not soon to be forgotten.

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The 1700-1939 Boo...: The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton (Book 4 and 5).	8	19	Dec 22, 2013 09:39PM
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The Hairpin: Book Club: The Buccaneers	6	48	Sep 16, 2012 07:25PM
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About Edith Wharton

Edith Newbold Jones was born into such wealth and privilege that her family inspired the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses." The youngest of three children, Edith spent her early years touring Europe with her parents and, upon the family's return to the United States, enjoyed a privileged childhood in New York and Newport, Rhode Island. Edith's creativity and talent soon became obvious: By the a Edith Newbold Jones was born into such wealth and privilege that her family inspired the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses." The youngest of three children, Edith spent her early years touring Europe with her parents and, upon the family's return to the United States, enjoyed a privileged childhood in New York and Newport, Rhode Island. Edith's creativity and talent soon became obvious: By the age of eighteen she had written a novella, (as well as witty reviews of it) and published poetry in the Atlantic Monthly.

After a failed engagement, Edith married a wealthy sportsman, Edward Wharton. Despite similar backgrounds and a shared taste for travel, the marriage was not a success. Many of Wharton's novels chronicle unhappy marriages, in which the demands of love and vocation often conflict with the expectations of society. Wharton's first major novel, The House of Mirth, published in 1905, enjoyed considerable literary success. Ethan Frome appeared six years later, solidifying Wharton's reputation as an important novelist. Often in the company of her close friend, Henry James, Wharton mingled with some of the most famous writers and artists of the day, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, André Gide, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, and Jack London.

In 1913 Edith divorced Edward. She lived mostly in France for the remainder of her life. When World War I broke out, she organized hostels for refugees, worked as a fund-raiser, and wrote for American publications from battlefield frontlines. She was awarded the French Legion of Honor for her courage and distinguished work.

The Age of Innocence, a novel about New York in the 1870s, earned Wharton the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1921 -- the first time the award had been bestowed upon a woman. Wharton traveled throughout Europe to encourage young authors. She also continued to write, lying in her bed every morning, as she had always done, dropping each newly penned page on the floor to be collected and arranged when she was finished. Wharton suffered a stroke and died on August 11, 1937. She is buried in the American Cemetery in Versailles, France.
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“The greatest mistake is to think that we ever know why we do things...I suppose the nearest we can ever come to it is by getting what old people call 'experience.' But by the time we've got that we're no longer the persons who did the things we no longer understand. The trouble is, I suppose, that we change every moment; and the things we did stay.” — 10 likes

“And for a long while they stood side by side without speaking, each seeing the other in every line of the landscape.” — 9 likes

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