The Buccaneers

Five American girls, denied access to 1870s New York society due to the newness of their wealth, go to England to marry into the cash-hungry aristocracy, in a meticulous rendering of Wharton's unfinished masterpiece. 50,000 first printing. $25,000 ad/promo. BOMC Dual Main.

Aided by the gifted Mainwaring, Wharton delivers a posthumous gift to both the high and the low of brow with this novel, which was left unfinished at her death in 1937 and published in its incomplete state a year later. While filled with glamorous, class-obsessed characters and plot lines that Krantz and Sheldon might envy, it is a work of beauty--a grandly executed, full-scale counterpart to Wharton's classic story "Roman Fever." Here, a Mrs. St. George, a matron of the 1870s whose husband has means but no social standing, schemes to advance her daughters' prospects; she hires a well-connected British governess, Laura Testvalley. The governess's taste and sensibilities make her the perfect commentator on the caste-consciousness of the other characters, both the parvenus and the British aristocrats whose sons are eventually conquered by the "buccaneers," bold American daughters of rich fathers. The suggestion of cynicism, meanwhile, is elegantly balanced by an infusion of romance. Wharton's superb sophistication and literary virtues need no enumeration, and Mainwaring, who completed the novel in accordance with Wharton's notes and outlines, is also to be heartily commended. Her entrance, about three-fifths of the way through, goes unheralded by notes or typographical fanfare--and it is so smooth and so assured that it will likely go undetected by the reader. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; BOMC main selection; film rights to Twentieth Century-Fox.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

When Wharton died in 1937, she left unfinished a novel about fresh young Americans in class-bound England that Time declared would have been her masterpiece. Now Wharton scholar Mainwaring has polished up the rough draft and interpolated a few passages, and the result is a masterpiece. When the St. George girls and their friend Lizzy Elmsworth aren't accepted in New York society because their bloodlines just don't go back far enough, no matter how rich they are, the St. George governess recommends that they go to England. Here they quickly make grand marriages--one rattled young husband declares that they are really "buccaneers"--but becoming a duchess does not bring happiness to Nan St. George. Initially the overshadowed little sister, Nan emerges as an independent, self-possessed young woman who makes a momentous decision that shocks everyone--even her less stuffy compatriots--and her transformation is heartening to watch. Wharton retains her eye for detail but burnishes her crystalline prose with passion. Highly recommended. BOMC Main selection; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/93.
- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.