The criticism for Mainwaring's finished novel was harsh in 1993. In "The New Yorker", John Updike stated regarding the completed “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.” Secondly, In "The New Republic", Andrew Delbanco likened Dr. Mainwaring's efforts to an act of “literary necrophilia.” Also, in a "Globe" review, Katherine A. 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. But there are also sketchiness, lacunae, and a central implausibility, this perhaps the reason she never could complete the work... (Mainwaring's editions) were frankly no help. 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.”