Kane sets his sights on eventually becoming an executive of Lester’s bank. He retreats into his studies at Harvard, turning to his school friends, including his best friend, Mathew Lester. Kane finds that Henry is his godfather, and resents his influence on his mother. His widowed mother, Anne, remarries to a gambler and womanizer, Henry Osborne. Paul’s School, and goes on to enroll at Harvard College in Boston. Though fatherless, Kane attends and excels at St. Kane, as a result, inherited Richard’s fortune, including the bank Kane & Cabot.

Richard died when Kane was young in the tragic crash of the steamship Titanic during its voyage from England to New York City. In early adulthood, Kane aspires to be like his father, Richard Kane, a successful banker. The novel is constructed of vignettes of the experiences of William (who goes mainly by his last name “Kane”) and Abel Rosnovski, who are both born on April 18, 1906. Kane and Abel remains one of the top-selling books in the world and has entered the canon of British literature. Taking its name from a famous story about two brothers in the Book of Genesis, the novel is acclaimed for its powerful portrayal of the sentiment that human fates can be entangled in each other regardless of familial or class differences. The first, William Lowell Kane, is a member of the Boston elite known as the Brahmin the second, Abel Rosnovski, leaves a life of severe poverty in Poland for Turkey and eventually New York City. British writer and former conservative politician Jeffrey Archer’s historical fiction Kane and Abel (1979) concerns two men linked only by a common birthday, who follow their ambitions to overcome their difficult pasts.

Kane and abel jeffrey archer summary