The Buccaneers

Movies often don't do justice to the original material and I believe this is true for The Buccaneers. After seeing the movie I was a bit wary about reading the book, but I'm glad I took the chance and hope this review encourages others to do the same.

The story concerns five American heiresses – Conchita Closson; Virginia and Annabel "Nan" St. George; and Lizzie and Mabel Elmsworth – who are unable to gain entrée into the upper echelons of American society because their families' wealth comes from "new money." So the girls are introduced into English society with the assistance of Conchita, who has married the younger son of a marquess, and their governess, Miss Testvalley, whose previous posts included some of the noble families now on the girls' radar.

The Buccaneers was only about 2/3 complete when Edith Wharton died in 1937, and though her notes were not extensive they did include a synopsis of the main story lines. Marion Mainwaring completed Wharton's book in the 1990s, around the same time that the movie was being made. Both achieved the end result that Wharton intended but Mainwaring's version is superior in every way, building as she did on the foundation Wharton had laid without subordinating or supplanting it.

***SPOILERS***

Though the basic framework of the movie and the book are the same, the movie introduced several significant deviations that not only detracted from the story Wharton was trying to tell but turned it into soap opera fodder, i.e., Wharton never said or suggested that the Duke was sexually attracted to men, or that he consummated the marriage by raping Nan; the reason Conchita needed money was to pay off her and her husband's debts, not to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, and her husband did not have a venereal disease; and Guy never actually occupied a political perch from which to give revolutionary speeches. Nan left the Duke in both renditions but the movie's handling of this event was painfully anachronistic whereas Mainwaring's depiction fits more credibly with the place, the time and the characters that Wharton described.

In both book and movie Nan is the heroine of the piece, an endearing character whose romantic nature has been nurtured by her governess, mentor and friend, Miss Testvalley. The book effectively conveys why this was such a recipe for disaster: meeting the Duke among the "magical" ruins of his Cornish castle, Tintagel, Nan imbued him with qualities he simply did not possess. He was not a bad man, just so rigidly traditional and unimaginative that he didn't know how to function outside of strict order and ritual. Even his restoration of Tintagel lacked any hint of romanticism or whimsy - he considered it a "costly folly" that he was obligated to finish only because it had been started by his father.

The Duke fell in love with Nan (as much as he was capable) because of her "childish innocence, her indifference to money and honours", but he never gave a single thought to how stifling the rigid rules, the pomp and ceremony of life as he and his family lived it, were to the very qualities in Nan that first attracted him. She was simply expected to adapt. And she might well have done so in a less stagnant, emotionally stifling setting, such as the vastly different environment she later found at Lady Glenloe's home. But the Duke and his mother, the Dowager Duchess, had been firmly inculcated in the supremacy of tradition ("It has always been like that"), and they were as intolerant of the smallest suggestion of change as they were of Nan's "asking the reason of things that have nothing to do with reasons." So, for example, Nan was surprised by the radiant Correggio paintings ("those happy pagans") hanging on the walls of her boudoir, a room previously occupied by the Dowager Duchess, until she realized the Dowager would have considered displacing the paintings to be the more subversive act.

Mainwaring picks up Wharton's thread at the point where Nan is on an extended visit to the Glenloe family. Miss Testvalley is now employed there, and Guy and his father are near neighbors and regular visitors. Guy had recently agreed to become the Duke's candidate for the House of Commons but he knows this is impossible once he realizes he's in love with Nan and how unhappily married she is. Too honorable to act on his feelings, neither can he bear the thought of spending time with her and the Duke as he would have to do as the Duke's political protege. So he decides to hire on with his old engineering firm and leave England again, and he only seeks out Nan to convince her to go with him after hearing that she has left the Duke.

The resolution of Nan and Guy's love story is only part of the appeal of Mainwaring's brilliant ending. She pulls together the threads placed by Wharton herself, drawing on the characterizations and events laid out in those earlier chapters to craft a delightfully satisfying conclusion. Reinforcing the titular theme as she ties up the loose ends, she puts on display the awe-inspiring talents of the truest buccaneers of them all, the Elmsworth sisters, as they surreptitiously aid the cause of Nan and Guy in pursuit of their own ambitious but believably achievable aims.

I loved The Buccaneers until I ran into Mainwaring's contribution, the last 12 chapters. That was like hitting a brick wall going 60 mph! As E.A. Solinas says, "The problem is that Marion Mainwaring doesn't write like Wharton," and it is horribly evident when Mainwaring takes over.

Not only is the tone all wrong, but there are horrible gaffs such as when Mainwaring characterizes Mrs. Closson as "an obelisk on the banks of the Hudson." Obelisk!!! Really? Is Mrs. Closson really "a stone pillar having a rectangular cross section tapering towards a pyramidal top"? Or is Mainwaring confused with "odalisque"? Don't believe me? Try the "Look Inside" function with the Penguin edition and search for 'obelisk' --there it is at the bottom of p. 327!!

This really was a shameless attempt to ride Scorsese's Age of Innocence coattails, wasn't it? Better to have left well enough alone, providing the reader with Wharton's synopsis of the remainder of the book.

Unfinished at the time of Edith Wharton's death in 1937, The Buccaneers was later completed by Marian Mainwaring and published in 1993. Set in the late nineteenth century, it is a story in which newly rich American girls go to London for "the season" and to find husbands. Like the novels of Henry James, one of Wharton's friends, it stresses the contrast between the values of new American society and those of the long-established society of Europe, setting the bright enthusiasms of the Americans against the ritualized behaviors of upperclass Londoners, the freedoms of the Americans against the social and familial obligations of the Europeans.

The daughters of the St. George and Elmsworth families have been snubbed by New York society for the newness of their wealth, and when their friend Conchita Closson marries a member of the British nobility, they follow her to England, intending to participate in "the season" and perhaps find husbands of their own. Though the older girls sometimes compete for the same suitors and are preoccupied with the superficialities of society, the youngest St. George sister, Nan, still retains her carefree spirit, her innocence, and her zest for life.

Wharton completed about three-fifths of the novel before her death, leaving a plot outline for the remainder of the novel. More melodramatic than most of her other novels, The Buccaneers is filled with domestic intrigues, as straightforward but remarkably naïve American heiresses are wooed by faithless suitors who need funds to support their traditional lifestyles. Nan's courtship and marriage become the emotional and dramatic focus of the last part of the novel.

The point at which Mainwaring begins writing is obvious. Though she follows the plot summary which Wharton left behind, her language is less elegant and less formal, her emphasis on the sexual aspects of the relationships more blatant. Marriage, when viewed by the participants as a social responsibility, rather than as a free, romantic choice, leads to the opportunistic marriages we see here, with one partner gaining at the expense of the other. Women take lovers, withhold sexual favors from their husbands--and talk about everyone else who does what they are doing. Trapped in stultifying relationships, they gain social acceptance at the expense of their freedom and happiness. The ending, filled with ironies, is unique among Wharton's novels, feeling more like a Gothic romance than Wharton's usual social commentary. n Mary Whipple

This Wharton novel is about 4 American heiresses, during The Guilded Age, who aren't accepted by New York society because they come from new money. So their Mothers take them to England and with the help of a marriage broker they all marry into the English Aristocracy. Most of the "cash for class" marriages weren't based on love but were based on how much money the heiresses father was able to provide to the cash strapped English in-laws to fix up their grand country houses. And the new ladies of the manor were expected to produce an heir, and a spare, to keep the ancestors happy. This book chronicles the up's and down's of three unhappy unions and one that was based on love. It's believed that Wharton based the character of Nan, who became a Duchess, on Consuelo Vanderbilt. Fans of Downton would probably enjoy this novel. I wasn't happy to find out the book was never finished. I've seen the mini-series, The Buccaneers, that was based on the book and I didn't care for some of the alterations to the story/some story lines and I have mixed emotions about the ending that was written for tv.

Julian Fellows, creator and writer of Downton Abbey, used "The Buccaneers" as part of his research into the 19th-century phenomenon of American girls from wealthy, new-money families who bought a title by marrying British aristocrats and infusing cash into their families' estates. Fellows reports that there were approximately 350 of these rich, young American women, which gave him the template for Cora Crawley, the Countess Grantham, and wife of Lord Grantham of Downton Abbey.

Wharton's book is a fascinating tale of four of these American girls whose newly wealthy families were shunned by New York's families of old-money wealth. Rejected by the snobs whose ancestors, not fathers, made their money, Virginia, Nan, Liz and Mabel do "a season" among London's old families. Two of them snag titled aristocrats, one a wealthy MP and the fourth returns to America to marry a wealthy countryman. Wharton's book is an engaging tale of the "Buccaneer" phenomenon and a fascinating study of the character of Nan, on whose head a tiara sits uncomfortably.

I was skeptical about reading this book, since it was not complete by Edith Wharton. However, I was pleasantly surprised. Marion Mainwaring did a wonderful job of completing the novel. I was unable to tell where Edith's writing stopped and Marion's began. (The afterword describes exactly what Marion added.) -very fun book to read. I finished it in just a few days.

This book was just something i grabbed of the shelf as i ran out of the library before going on holiday, i never thought for one moment what this book was but then as i began to read it i discovered what a fabulous and entertaining book it was. It took me a while to get in to it but as the story moved to England i enjoyed it more and could not put it down. I found it interesting to compare the attitudes of people in America and England and now i have just started to read another Wharton novel.

For those who believe the Mainwaring version is too "boring", read the Angela Mackworth-Young version which incorporates marital rape, homosexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, suicide and an 1870s style catfight into a plot designed to hold the attention of an audience who relishes trashy paperback romance novels and watches re-runs of The Jerry Springer Show. Mackworth-Young's version is based upon the Maggie Wadey's screenplay which was made into a series for the BBC in 1995. Wadey's BBC series was roundly criticized at the time for "sensationalism" by the Times of London and by the then-deputy director of the Edith Wharton Restoration program.

After reading both versions, I have to say Mainwaring's is more in the spirit of Edith Wharton both in style and substance. But for the Jerry Springer crowd, there's always the Mackworth-Young and Wadey version to be devoured like any other piece of literary junk food.

The Buccanners by Edith Wharton has been said to be based on the marriage of Consuela Vanderbilt to the Duke of Marlborogh. The only resemblence that I could see is that Consuelo married a duke and later divorced him, and the central figure in this book also married a duke. Nan St. George is the 18 year old American who marries the English duke. She is always in the shadow of her older beautiful sister and just drifts into a marriage and then drifts out of it. She is short and not too bright. Consuelo was tall, 5ft 8 inches, well educated, elegant and forceful. She was only 18 when she married the duke and made a tremendous effort to assume the duties of a duchess. Nan St. George prefered to remain child
like and drifted in to a romance with another man and wanted to go to the Greece of Byron and Rossetti. She lacked common sense and education. She was still clinging to her governess long after she was a wife and pregnant. The book constantly describes her as young and small. She had the brain and mind of a grammar school child. Edith Wharton lived in the social circles depicted in this book.

I adore this novel. It's my favorite Wharton novel and I just can't say enough about it. The language, setting, and tone just pull and draw the reader in. This novel is just so perfectly constructed. It's a wonderful read....not only do you get a WONDERFUL romance, but you get a well balanced, classical English novel. I also really love the friendship between the girls and how it ties the whole novel together.
I can't even explain why and how much I love this book.