The buccaneers : a novel /

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. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Wharton's final novel (completed by Marion Mainwaring after the author's death in 1937) revolves around American and British society in the 1870s. Told in large part through the eyes of American debutantes, the story portrays innocent, wide-eyed, almost ethereal girls who turn into socially conscious women with financial worries--unrecognizable even to themselves. The beginning sections quickly catch the listener's attention, with lush descriptions of rooms, clothes, and the heights of feminine beauty. We enter a world of intrigue: secrets, characters with past relationships that could prove fatal, and competition taken to its limits. Its literary value notwithstanding, this book might appeal to soap opera and romance fans. For more attentive listeners, it quickly becomes disconcerting as more and more characters with awkward British-sounding names are added. It's increasingly difficult to recall who's who without backing up the tape. Most libraries can pass on this one.-- Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, ``Soho Weekly News,'' New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A major novel of manners, three-fifths completed at the time of Wharton's death in 1937 and published as a fragment in 1938, has now been finished with impressive spirit and skill by Wharton scholar Marion Mainwaring. The novel, grand in scope and ambition, is set in Saratoga, Fifth Avenue, and London during the roaring 1870's--Wharton's golden age. It's the slightly helter-skelter story of three newly rich (and, in New York, socially unacceptable) American families who--under the tutelage of a high-spirited Anglo-Italian governess, Miss Testvalley (Testavaglia), a first cousin of Pre-Raphaelite poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti--quickly conquer the upper reaches of English society. (The English aristocracy is drawn to the ``new money'' that Fifth Avenue rejects.) First, Brazilian-American bombshell Conchita Closson marries a disreputable younger son of an English marquis at the races in Saratoga, where Miss Testvalley has just joined the neighboring St. George family as governess. Then- -after a series of social snubs in New York--Conchita and her mother; Virginia St. George and Lizzie Elmsworth (Conchita's best friends); their socially aspiring, somewhat foolish mothers; and Miss Testvalley all set sail for London. There, through Miss Testvalley's offices, the beautiful Virginia St. George marries the respectable elder brother of Conchita's husband, and the dark and wily Lizzie Elmsworth marries a prominent MP. But the ostensible heroine here--and, inadvertently, the most successful social climber of them all--is Virginia's insignificant-looking but kind and intelligent younger sister, Annabel (Nan), who's prevailed upon to marry a socially exalted but utterly unloveable stick of a duke. The novel's last third tracks Nan's decision to divorce the duke, marry her true love--English gentleman Guy Thwarte--and flee with him to Greece. But what Nan never finds out is that her decision robs the deserving, adoring real heroine here, Miss Testvalley, of her own secret late-life lover--Guy's father, who suffers a heart attack on hearing the news about Nan and his son. Not entirely knitted together--some awfully vivid characters just drop from sight--but, still, this is wonderful to read. (First printing of 50,000; Book-of-the-Month Dual Selection)