The young women's fathers' money is very attractive to European aristocrats to maintain their version of wealth: collections of art, property, and other accoutrements of social status.

Some of Wharton's close friends, such as her literary executor Galliard Lapsey, stated that the story was brought to its intended conclusion.

By far, the greater part, all indeed but the climax, the conclusion, and the scenes by which these were to be directly approached, are not only in print, but in what amounts to final form.

Christopher Money referred to those who responded negatively to Wharton's last work as a "low-class lot", and respected her humor towards the upper elite.

[6] Money even complimented Wharton's literary executor on his "eloquent, but surely unnecessary apology for the publication of this incomplete novel".

In The New Yorker, John Updike stated, "we have a text that in no typographical way discriminates between her words and Wharton's, and that asks us to accept this bastardization as a single smooth reading unit."

Powers wrote that certain sections of The Buccaneers showcased "Wharton at her finest: subtle figures and tropes, eagle-eyed irony and a pathologist's acuity in matters of class and morality.

Under her pen, the narrative loses its ironic torque, the Prince of Wales strolls in, and the story, lobotomized and docile, becomes a blueblood infatuated gush.

[8] Wadey's version of The Buccaneers, with the inclusion of homosexuality as well as its romantically dramatic showiness and seemingly "happy ending", received widespread criticism from both the BBC viewing public and Wharton fans and scholars alike.

While Wadey's BBC ending was at the heart of the controversy, both Mainwaring's and Wadey's endings were heavily criticized for their "sensationalism" and perceived lack of "trueness" to Wharton's style of work, and both writers independently made the claims that they sought to romanticize and "Americanize" the story, despite it having been penned by Wharton to explore the intersections and clashes of class, commerce, and marriage in Old and New World cultures and high society.

Cast and characters In June 2022, Apple TV+ announced plans to adopt the novel into a television series[9] starring Kristine Froseth, Alisha Boe, Josie Totah, Aubri Ibrag, Mia Threapleton, and Christina Hendricks.