“The Financier” is a brilliant, historically accurate novel about the elite of American business that created enormous fortunes in the second half of the 19th century. A novel about a world where only the strongest people survive—those who can withstand blows of fate and, relentlessly and despite everything, move toward their goal: acquiring wealth and power.
“The Financier” is the first part of Dreiser’s monumental trilogy (“Titan” and “Stoic”). It is based on the life story of millionaire Charles Yerkes. The main hero of the trilogy is Frank Cowperwood. The commercial environment that surrounded Frank since childhood forms in him the psychology of an entrepreneur. Starting with small speculations, gradually pulling himself into bold and risky operations, amid a brutal struggle Cowperwood acquires his fortune. Drive, energy, and talent make the hero a financial genius and a giant. Realizing the power of the capital he amassed and his professional experience, Frank Cowperwood proclaims his life motto—the one that gives the entire trilogy its name: “My desires first of all.”