Kane and Abel

Kane and Abel is a 1979 novel by British author Jeffrey Archer. Released in the United Kingdom in 1979 and in the United States in February 1980, the book was an international success. It reached No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list. The sequel to Kane and Abel is The Prodigal Daughter, in which Florentyna Kane is the protagonist.

Kane & Abel is among the top 100 best-selling books in the world, with a similar number of copies sold as To Kill a Mockingbird and Gone with the Wind.

In 2003, Kane and Abel was listed at number 96 on the BBC’s survey The Big Read.[1]

The book tells the stories of two men born worlds apart. They have nothing in common except the same date of birth (18 April 1906 in the book, and 1901 in the miniseries based on it) and a zeal to succeed in life. William Lowell Kane is a wealthy and powerful elite class while Abel Rosnovski (originally named Władek Koskiewicz) is a Pole who was born in a situation of great poverty and eventually migrated to the United States.

William follows the steps of his father, Richard Kane, to become a successful banker. When William was still a child, Richard dies in the Titanic disaster, leaving William fatherless and heir to the Kane & Cabot bank. William displays extraordinary discipline and intelligence as a young man at St. Paul’s School and later at Harvard. His mother, Anne, marries Henry Osborne, who turns out to be interested in gambling and women (One of the godparents of William). William hates Henry from the beginning and spends most of the time at Harvard and at his best friend Mathew Lester’s home. William dreams of becoming the chairman of Lester’s bank one day. Henry spends every last penny of Kane’s mother’s money on the pretext of speculation. Anonymous notes warn Anne (who has been impregnated by Osborne, a matter which causes William some worry—until he finds out that he can toss Henry out easily without any money) about her husband whose real name is Vitorio Tossana. She hires a detective to find out the truth, and miscarries fatally from the shock—after which Kane ejects Henry from his home.

Władek Koskiewicz is born in a forest and raised by a trapper family. When he grows up and is found to have exceptional intelligence, Baron Rosnovski asks him to become a companion to his son Leon so Wladek might prove to be a competition to him. Władek agrees to go to the Baron’s castle on the condition that he can bring along his elder sister Florentyna. Soon afterwards, World War I breaks out. Germans attack Poland and capture the Baron, his staff and son in his castle. Leon dies by the hand of a soldier. Before dying, the Baron hands Wladek his silver band of authority. Władek realises that the Baron was his father when he finds that, like him, the Baron also had a missing nipple. Florentyna, Władek’s beloved sister, who was now his only family, is raped 17 times and killed brutally in front of young Władek by Russian soldiers.