[3] 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.

William Lowell Kane is the wealthy and powerful, Ivy League-educated heir to an old Boston Brahmin family, while Abel Rosnovski (originally named Władek Koskiewicz) is a Pole who was born into great poverty and eventually migrated to the United States.

William displays extraordinary discipline and intelligence as a young man at St. Paul's School and later at Harvard University.

William hates Henry from the beginning and spends most of the time at Harvard and at his best friend Mathew Lester's home.

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 him out easily without any money) about her husband, whose real name is Vitorio Tossana.

She hires a detective to find out the truth, and, in a twist, miscarries fatally from the shock—after which Kane ejects Osborne from his home.

When he grows up and is found to have exceptional intelligence, Baron Rosnovski asks him to become a companion to his son, Leon, so that Władek might prove to be a competition to him.

They transfer him to the Polish consulate from where, with their help, he migrates to America and assumes the name Abel Rosnovski (as inscribed on the silver band).

He starts his life as a waiter in the Hotel Plaza, while taking night classes in economics at Columbia University.

During the Great Depression, the hotel needs a backer and Davis, unable to find one, commits suicide, leaving the remaining shares in the Richmond Group to Abel.

Abel thus plans for revenge and considers Kane his arch rival who was responsible for the death of his closest friend.

Another Indian adaptation titled Kismat ("Destiny"), produced by YRF Television, was set in Bombay in post-independent India.