“I am writing a new novel of the same period as The Age of Innocence…This one, however, is considerably less innocent,” is how Wharton described The Buccaneers to a friend. She never finished The Buccaneers, which was published a year after her death. It tells of four young American women who go to England in search of husbands, aided by their parents’ wealth and a sagacious governess, Laura Testvalley.

Many critics thought it a return to form. In 1993, a “completed” version by Marion Mainwaring was published; two years later another one was published, this time by Angela Mackworth-Young and based on the 1995 mini-series, was released.

Published in September 1938