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The Buccaneers

Edith Wharton,

Marion Mainwaring

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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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Aug 04, 2007 Kay rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, american-lit, gilded-age

Many critics were disgruntled with Mainwaring having had the audacity to complete Wharton's unfinished novel. However, I think she did a reasonably good job, and given that no one else had stepped up to the plate for all those years, I'm prepared to cut her some slack. Yes, Mainwaring doesn't have as delicate a literary touch or as keen an eye for social situations as Wharton, but she's certainly no slouch.

Strictly from a historical standpoint, too, I enjoyed this novel, which Wharton based on t ...more

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