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....

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.

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

it's too bad edith wharton didn't live long enough to finish this bc there are so many ways the ending could've gone and i don't think marion mainwaring necessarily picked the best one. for when it was written, the story is weirdly very modern.

i adore adore adore parts 1 and 2. in a lot of ways, it read like an episode of downton abbey with the culture clashes between the english and americans, and with the sarcasm, classicism, and snobbery in conversations. i laughed out loud reading some of the dialogue in this.
part 3's time jump was awkward and i'm still on the fence about whether nan was in-character during this section.
part 4 is largely just fanfiction written by mainwaring, and while yes she did use wharton's notes, idk. i wish she'd diverted from trying to finish the story with a neat bow wrapped on top and instead focused on the characters and their interactions; in the end, it was oddly rushed and the relationships felt underdeveloped.

Having seen the BBC production, I can honestly say I liked the book so much better, and that it was a strong 5 stars for me. This is the last book Edith Wharton wrote before she died in 1938, and it was finished according to her detailed outline and republished in 1993. The story is centered around five rich American young women, four of whom end up marrying into British society when they find their prospects limited in the United States. The main character is Annabel. When we meet her, she is 16 and her mother has just hired a British governess for her. That is to become one of the most important relationships in her life. We also get to know Virginia (Jinny), her older sister, Lizzy Elmsworth and her younger sister Mabel, their friends, and Conchita Closson, their fascinating friend. One summer, they meet Sir Richard Marable, the third son of a Marquess, who is smitten with and then marries Conchita. When it becomes clear that, because they are not of the traditionally monied class, but, instead, of the new, Wall St., monied class, the prospects of the remaining friends to enter society are limited, they travel to Britain to visit Conchita. Virginia ends up marrying into the same family. Annabel also ends up marrying, but even "higher," to Duke Tintagel, but the marriage goes badly. Lizzy ends up marrying an up-and-coming member of Parliament, and Mabel eventually marries one of the richest men in America. Eventually, Annabel discovers her true love, and we are treated to a description of British aristocracy manners and mores in the 1870's.

Wharton creates engaging characters and writes with great descriptiveness that keeps the story lines moving. She is an astute student of human nature. It was hard to put this book down.

"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.

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.

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"), and her governess, Laura, who is related to the pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti and has a rebellious nature beneath her quiet surface.
When I picked up this copy of Edith Wharton's final unfinished novel, I didn't realise it had been completed by another writer, Marion Mainwaring. (Maybe I should have guessed this from the mention of it being a "complete edition" on the cover, but it might have been helpful if the publishers had added the second author's name!) I'll admit I didn't read very much of her continuation - there is no indication of where the break comes, but it is pretty obvious as her writing style is very different, and I didn't feel reading her section would add much to Wharton's subtle characterisation. I found Wharton's original text online with details of the outline she left of her plans for the rest of the novel, and that was enough for me. I would really like to give five stars for Wharton - or for her best passages - and one for the continuation.

This seemed a bit lighter than others by Wharton that I've read. Perhaps that is because this was her last novel, and unfinished. She didn't live to revise, and I think this simply her first draft. It was completed by another author. Mainwaring did a good job of this as the transition was seamless, and it wasn't until I'd read the last page that I knew where Wharton left off and Mainwaring began.

That said, the ending is weaker than what I might expect from Wharton. As with other authors I've come to love, Wharton's endings tend toward the sadly ironic. I wasn't as invested in the character to whom that applies.

Even with that criticism, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I enjoyed it despite the fact that the synopsis on the back cover of this edition has a huge spoiler. However, an author only has one best novel, and, of course, for Wharton that is The Age of Innocence. She has some others that are close seconds, and this falls below them. A liberal 4-stars from me, but it probably sits toward the bottom of that group.

Excellent start and a more comic premise than I'm used to from Wharton, but I felt like it's lost its way 3/4 through. It might be my mind telling stories—the novel was finished posthumously by a Wharton scholar, and it's so enticing to read between the lines and try to see the literary machinations—but the part that was definitively not written by Wharton feels weaker.

In the section penned by not-Wharton, Guy and Nan’s characters seem more one-dimensional. The plot wraps up too squarely with the right woman paired off to the right man. It’s enormously rushed, covering loads of events in the final 75 or so pages. And let's be frank: a happy-ish ending isn't what I'm used to after the fates Wharton dealt to Lily Bart or Newland Archer!

That said, I like the themes plumbed here. You have all the Wharton classics: Europe/America dichotomy, the strict gender roles and explosions they create in the marriage market, the admirative skewering of Wall Street nouveaux riches. But her dealing of them feels more tongue in cheek and also more decided. Where previous bouts could end up in a somewhat ambivalent place, Wharton doesn't leave much to doubt here, which is actually more interesting than the alternative, letting us glimpse her own thoughts based on very fascinating years as the daughter of a rich Manhattan scion and as an expatriate in Europe.

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” girls who found themselves denied entry to the upper reaches of New York society. Instead, they crossed the Atlantic, where London found their brash charms a breath of fresh air. Marriage to a variety of nobles ensued.

Wharton’s idea was fairly genius. Dramatizing how a group kept out of “old” society in one country prospered by being the new blood that an even older social set in another cried out for provided an interesting extrapolation of themes the writer had explored in numerous of her works. The Buccaneers still was a drama of manners. The Americans faced differing levels of success in navigating the labyrinth of customs and expectations of Upper Class Brits. But unlike other novels where the newcomers were kept out, here they succeeded brilliantly. Fans of Downton Abbey may recognize the concept of a rich American becoming the wife of a British noble.

At its core, The Buccaneers was about the complicated romance of Nan St. George and Guy Thwarte. A brief encounter established a seed of sympathy between the duo. But Guy was obliged to go abroad and make the money needed to keep his family’s estate afloat. Nan entered an ill-advised marriage to a colorless Duke who couldn’t appreciate her unique sensibilities. The feelings that spark between Nan and Guy when they re-enter one another’s lives drive the drama of the final act.

In many ways, The Buccaneers is atypical of Wharton’s plots. For one, the star-crossed couple got that rarest of Wharton rewards: a happy ending. The duo transcended the blight on their reputations and ran off together. Prior Wharton heroines had only a life or regret and loss (or, occasionally, poverty-stricken death) as reward for their impulsive actions and questionable decisions. Nan got to be with the man she loved, even if the scandal produced would blow back on her family.

Nan also had something few Wharton heroines had: a sympathetic friend and advisor who cared more about Nan’s happiness than bowing to propriety. Nan’s governess, Laura Tetsvalley (daughter of an expat Italian family), filled the maternal role for Nan more capably than Nan’s own fairly useless mother. Laura made mistakes of her own along the way, but eventually elected to bear the brunt of Nan’s scandal on her own shoulders, allowing her former pupil to escape a life that made her unhappy.

The Buccaneers also is notable for how sympathetic its putative villains are. Ushant, the colorless Duke, set a lot of the unhappiness in motion. He married Nan not because he particularly valued her, but because he found her ignorance of his station appealing and thought he could mold her into an ideal wife. While that doesn’t value Nan’s virtues, it’s also not exactly hissable. The Duke was a product of his upbringing and only wanted his wife to learn her role and help perpetuate his line. But the story made clear that, while not warm, he wasn’t a bad person. The rules of British society at the time gave him the right to force his will on Nan, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do that. Given that his wife left him after telling him she was in love with someone else, the fact that he tried to end the union in as quiet a manner as possible is rather commendable.

The Dowager Duchess was also a source of antagonism for Nan. But the writing does a good job of demonstrating that she was motivated by her sense of duty, to her son, his position and their family. You may not like her, but she’s understandable. Even a spoiled noblewoman who launched an unfounded scandal about Nan out of a fit of pique was more pathetic than evil.

Some of those differences might be attributed to Mainwaring. And yet she channels Wharton’s style almost seamlessly. And the plot developments were based on Wharton’s own plans for The Buccaneers. Mainwaring blends into Wharton’s work quite well. A reader could believe the finished book is the product of one voice.

For fans of Wharton’s more famous books, The Buccaneers is a thematic variation worth checking out.

A version of this review originally appeared on www.thunderalleybcp.com

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. The Buccaneers is an unfinished work by Edith Wharton (1862-1937) which was published as that in 1938 by her publisher. That version is not at this time available on Kindle but I would be interested in knowing how many changes were made until the XXIX. Wharton had written 89,000 words & the rest was finished by a Wharton scholar Marion Mainwaring in 1993 & soon after a TV mini series was produced from this book. I noticed a different ending feel than the past Wharton novels I have read but I have not read them all yet. I was very happy with this ending but due to the controversy from many who thought Wharton would have ended it differently. In 1995, Angela Mackworth- Young finished it with a different ending, and this is not available on Kindle either. Wharton wanted to write a book about the Gilded age of marriages between wealthy American heiresses & English nobility which at that time labeled as Buccaneers. In New York society many of the young girls were in a group labeled The Buccaneers. There are resemblances to Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough, Lady Randolph Churchill & Consuelo Montagu, Duchess of Manchester. I had heard that Winston Churchill had ties to America but it was interesting to find out that his mother was born in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn -Jeanette Jerome -aka - Lady Randolph Churchill. The story tells of the match making, marrying for title & money. The differences in American & English women of the time & of both societies.The story tells of five girls & their mothers after having no success in finding husbands for their daughters in high society & lacking invitations to higher events given by more prominent families decide to do a "London season". In hope they might have better luck. Virginia, Lizzy, Mabel & Nan visit a American friend, Conchita recently wed to a nobelman. Excerpts- "Ushant must have two sons- three, if possible. But his wife doesn't seem to understand her duties. Yet she has only to look into the prayer-book ...But I've never been able to find out to what denomination her family belongs.""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'.