The Buccaneers
Encyclopedia
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.- Early life and marriage:...
. It was unfinished
Unfinished work
An unfinished work is creative work that has not been finished. Its creator may have chosen never to finish it or may have been prevented from doing so by circumstances outside of their control such as death. Such pieces are often the subject of speculation as to what the finished piece would have...
at the time of her death in 1937, and published in that form in 1938. Wharton's manuscript ends with Lizzy inviting Nan to a house party to which Guy Thwarte has been invited too. After careful study of the synopsis and notes, Wharton scholar Marion Mainwaring
Marion Mainwaring
Marion Mainwaring is an American writer, translator, and critic.Mainwaring is best known as the author who completed Edith Wharton's novel The Buccaneers, published in 1993. She earlier assisted R. W. B. Lewis in researching his Pulitzer- and Bancroft-prize-winning 1976 biography of Wharton...
finished the novel, which was published by Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
(ISBN 978-0140232028) in 1993. Independently, the same year the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
hired screenwriter Maggie Wadey to adapt and finish the novel for a television serial adaptation, which was produced by the BBC and American PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
broadcaster WGBH
WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV, channel 2, is a non-commercial educational public television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WGBH-TV is a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service , and produces more than two-thirds of PBS's national prime time television programming...
, and screened on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
in the UK and in the Masterpiece Theatre
Masterpiece Theatre
Masterpiece is a drama anthology television series produced by WGBH Boston. It premiered on Public Broadcasting Service on January 10, 1971, making it America's longest-running weekly prime time drama series. The series has presented numerous acclaimed British productions...
series in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, airing in 1995. A companion book to the BBC series was published by Viking in 1995 (ISBN 0-670-86645-8). For this book, Angela Mackworth-Young finished the novel based on the screen play of Maggie Wadey. As a result the novel has three endings: Wharton's unfinished novel published in 1938, the Mainwaring finished novel published in 1993 and the Mackworth-Young finished novel published in 1995.
A previous children's television series produced by ITC Entertainment
ITC Entertainment
The Incorporated Television Company was a British television company largely involved in production and distribution. It was founded by Lew Grade.-History:...
in 1956 has no relation to the Edith Wharton novel.
The story revolves around five wealthy and ambitious American girls, their guardians
Legal guardian
A legal guardian is a person who has the legal authority to care for the personal and property interests of another person, called a ward. Usually, a person has the status of guardian because the ward is incapable of caring for his or her own interests due to infancy, incapacity, or disability...
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. As the novel progresses, the plot follows Nan and her marriage to the Duke of Tintagel.
It is a story of the morals held by fashionable society at the time, when it was considered more important to marry for social position than for romantic love. The novel is also a poignant example of art imitating life, since one of the stories resembles the ill-fated marriage of heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt
Consuelo Vanderbilt
Consuelo Balsan , was a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family...
and the Duke of Marlborough
Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough
Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough KG, PC , styled Earl of Sunderland until 1883 and Marquess of Blandford between 1883 and 1892, was a British soldier and Conservative politician...
, as well as Lady Randolph Churchill's marriages, to some extent.
List of characters
- Annabel "Nan" St. George
- Virginia "Jinny" St. George
- Conchita Closson
- Elizabeth "Lizzy" Elmsworth
- Mabel "Mab" Elmsworth
- Laura Testvalley, governess
- Miss Jacqueline March
- Ushant, the Duke of Tintagel (Julius, Duke of Trevennick)
- Guy Thwarte (Guy Thwaite)
- Lord Richard Marable
- Lord Seadown
- Hector Robinson
- Mrs. St. George
- Colonel Tracy St. George
- Mrs. Closson
- Mr. Closson
- Teddy de Dios-Santos
- Mrs. Elmsworth
- Lord Brightlingsea
- Selina, Lady Brightlingsea
- Blanche, The Dowager Duchess of Tintagel (The Dowager Duchess of Trevennick)
- Sir Helmsley Thwarte (Sir Helmsley Thwaite)
- Lady Idina Churt (Idina Hatton)
- Miles Dawnley
NOTE: Maggie Wadey's BBC screenplay changed the names and eliminated some characters. The Wadey changes are in parentheses. The characters eliminated in the Wadey screen play are Mabel Elmsworth, Lizzy' sister, and Teddy de Dios-Santos, Conchita's half-brother.
In the second paragraph of the Mackworth-Young's first chapter, Mabel Elmsworth is written out of the story as having turned down the marriage offer of the Duke of Falmenneth and married a "dashing, intelligent, young captain of the Guards". Teddy is written out completely.
In the Mainwaring version, Mabel Elmsworth marries an older American steel tycoon and later returns to England as an extremely wealthy widow. Mabel, Lizzy Elmsworth and Hector Robinson have more significant roles in the Mainwaring finished novel.