The Buccaneers is Edith Wharton's last novel.
During The Gilded Age, three ambitious new-money families find that their daughters — Virginia "Ginny" and Annabel "Nan" St. George, Elizabeth "Lizzy" and Mabel "Mab" Elmsworth, and Conchita "Connie" Closson — are considered unwelcome Nouveau Riche bachelorettes to the New York social scene. Nan's intelligent new governess, Laura Testvalley, gets the idea to send the girls to London so that they may participate in the Season and find themselves aristocratic English husbands. Nan lands the best match of the five and becomes Duchess Tintagel, but finds herself in an unhappy marriage and attracted to another man.
Unfinished at the time of Wharton's death, it was posthumously published in 1938. In 1993, Marion Mainwaring published a 'finished' version of the novel following Wharton's outline. The book has been twice adapted to television, as a 1995 BBC miniseries and as a 2023 Apple TV+ series.
Tropes:
- In-Universe Nickname: All five young ladies have nicknames. Virginia is "Ginny", Annabel is "Nan", Elizabeth is "Lizzy", Mabel is "Mab", and Conchita is "Connie".
- Meaningful Name: The Duke of Tintagel's name harkens back to Tintagel, a region with ties to Arthurian Legend. Specifically, some versions of the Tristan and Isolde legends have Tintagel be one of the courts of King Mark, who is married to Isolde as she pines for Tristan. No wonder Annabel, Duchess Titangel, soon finds herself pining after Guy Thwarte...
- Nobility Marries Money: The novel revolves around five wealthy and ambitious American girls, their guardians and the titled, landed but impoverished Englishmen who marry them as the girls participate in the London Season in search of a titled English gentleman for matrimonial purposes.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Conchita Closson, the Latina newcomer to the London and Saratoga scenes who marries an English nobleman, is based on Wharton's contemporary, Consuelo Yznaga
, a Cuban-American heiress who married into a ducal family and became Duchess of Manchester. - Nouveau Riche: The five heroines' families' money is too new for them to be accepted by American Old Money, so they're unleashed upon English nobility instead.
- Obnoxious Inlaws: The Dowager Duchess Tintager is extremely stifling towards her new daughter-in-law Nan, and is one of the reasons why Nan begins to seek happiness elsewhere.
- Spicy Latina: Conchita is the only Hispanic of the five and is the most free-spirited and sensual.
- Title Drop: The titular "buccaneers" are American new-money heiresses who slowly "conquer" the English marriage mart, comparable to pirates on the high seas.Hector: What a gang of buccaneers you are!
Lizzy: Buccaneers were not notorious for paying fortunes for what they took.
