Is The Buccaneers based on a book?

A lot of content is now based on a book or a series. What about The Buccaneers on Apple TV+? Is there source material you can read?

It’s not easy to find a series or a movie that isn’t based on some sort of source material. Sure enough, The Buccaneers is based on a book. However, this one isn’t your usual popular novel of the modern day that’s been turned into a series.

Instead, this series is based on a book that was published in 1938. It’s also a book that was unfinished until the 1990s!

Which book is The Buccaneers based on?

The Apple TV+ historical drama is based on Edith Wharton’s last, and unfinished, novel The Buccaneers. Wharton died in 1937, but the book was published a year later with its unfinished ending. The original story ended with Nan being invited to a house party that Guy Thwaite was also invited to.

The novel has since been finished. Marion Mainwaring completed the novel in the 1990s, basing the story on the detailed notes that Wharton had left behind before her death. If you want to see how the story was supposed to end with Mainwaring filling in the details, that’s the version that you want to read.

The original version is a fairly complete story. It is also praised as one of Wharton’s best novels, so it is worth reading that original way of ending it.

This novel was set in the same time period that Wharton was a young woman. A lot of the ways of the young girls in the story are based on her experiences, so while a lot of it may feel modern, it’s really not. Well, okay, the TV series has been modernized, but the book itself is very true to the time period.

The Buccaneers airs on Apple TV+ on Wednesdays.