Captains and the Kings
This is a great surging
novel about the amassing of a colossal fortune, the political power that
comes with it, and the operation of a curse laid on an Irish-American
dynasty and the ruthless driving man who founded it.
Joseph
Francis Xavier Armagh was thirteen years old when he first saw America
through a dirty porthole on the steerage deck of The Irish Queen. It was
the early 1850's and he was a penniless immigrant, an orphan cast on a
hostile shore to make a home for himself and his younger brother and
infant sister. Some seventy years later, from his deathbed, Joseph
Armagh last glimpsed his adopted land from the gleaming windows of a
palatial estate. A multi-millionaire, one of the most powerful and
feared men, Joseph Armagh had indeed found a home. CAPTAINS AND KINGS is
the story of the price that was paid for it in the consuming,
single-minded determination of a man clawing his way to the top; in the
bitter-sweet bliss of the love of a beautiful woman; in the almost
too-late enjoyment of extraordinary children; and in the curse which
used the hand of fate to strike in the very face of success itself.
Once
again, Taylor Caldwell has looked into America's roistering past as a
setting for a drama of the consequences of savage ambition - and its
meaning then and now.
Reviews
“An absorbing story . . . Thought-provoking. Those who were enthralled by the power described in
The Godfather will be even more so when they read this book.” —
Cleveland Press
“A spellbinding tale . . . Her sense of timing and her ability to keep
even the most alert reader guessing is something readers don’t find very
often.” —
Hartford Courant
“Her best novel.” —
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“This bestselling author can tell an engrossing story. She proves it once again in this gigantic novel.” —
Publishers Weekly
“There is intrigue, violence, abrupt shift of fortune, enigmatic
characters, full details of scene and history, and the unflagging pace
of varied action.” —
Buffalo Evening News
“
Captains and the Kings is a thought-provoking, utterly spellbinding novel in the great tradition of Taylor Caldwell’s earlier works,
Testimony of Two Men and
Great Lion of God.” —
The Literary Guild Magazine
NBC's First Mini-Series Event - Starring Richard Jordan in his Golden Globe Award-Winning Role
The Rags to Riches Story of an American Dynasty - Based on the Best-Selling Novel by Taylor Caldwell
Winner of Two Emmy Awards including Outstanding Lead Actress (Patty Duke) and Cinematography
Determined
to create a better life for his family, Joseph Armagh (Richard Jordan),
a penniless Irish immigrant, comes to America in the mid-19th century.
Through struggle, heartache and ruthless perseverance, he becomes one of
the richest and most powerful men in the country. But fortune has its
price as Joseph's arrogance and obsession to have his son Rory (Perry
King) elected president ultimately lead to his downfall.
TAYLOR CALDWELL
Also known by the pen names Marcus Holland and Max Reiner.
Taylor
Caldwell was born in Manchester, England. In 1907 she emigrated to the
United States with her parents and younger brother. Her father died
shortly after the move, and the family struggled. At the age of eight
she started to write stories, and in fact wrote her first novel, The Romance of Atlantis,
at the age of twelve (although it remained unpublished until 1975). Her
father did not approve such activity for women, and sent her to work in
a bindery. She continued to write prolifically, however, despite ill
health. (In 1947, according to TIME magazine, she discarded and burned
the manuscripts of 140 unpublished novels.)
In 1918-1919, she
served in the United States Navy Reserve. In 1919 she married William F.
Combs. In 1920, they had a daughter, Mary (known as "Peggy"). From 1923
to 1924 she was a court reporter in New York State Department of Labor
in Buffalo, New York. In 1924, she went to work for the United States
Department of Justice, as a member of the Board of Special Inquiry (an
immigration tribunal) in Buffalo. In 1931 she graduated from SUNY
Buffalo, and also was divorced from William Combs.
Caldwell then
married her second husband, Marcus Reback, a fellow Justice employee.
She had a second child with Reback, a daughter Judith, in 1932. They
were married for 40 years, until his death in 1971.
In 1934, she
began to work on the novel Dynasty of Death, which she and Reback
completed in collaboration. It was published in 1938 and became a
best-seller. "Taylor Caldwell" was presumed to be a man, and there was
some public stir when the author was revealed to be a woman. Over the
next 43 years, she published 42 more novels, many of them best-sellers.
For instance, This Side of Innocence was the biggest fiction
seller of 1946. Her works sold an estimated 30 million copies. She
became wealthy, traveling to Europe and elsewhere, though she still
lived near Buffalo.
Her books were big sellers right up to the end of her career. During her career as a writer, she received several awards.
She was an outspoken conservative and for a time wrote for the John Birch Society's monthly journal American Opinion and even associated with the anti-Semitic Liberty Lobby. Her memoir, On Growing Up Tough, appeared in 1971, consisting of many edited-down articles from American Opinion.
Around
1970, she became interested in reincarnation. She had become friends
with well-known occultist author Jess Stearn, who suggested that the
vivid detail in her many historical novels was actually subconscious
recollection of previous lives. Supposedly, she agreed to be hypnotized
and undergo "past-life regression" to disprove reincarnation. According
to Stearn's book, The Search of a Soul - Taylor Caldwell's Psychic Lives, Caldwell instead began to recall her own past lives - eleven in all, including one on the "lost continent" of Lemuria.
In
1972, she married William Everett Stancell, a retired real estate
developer, but divorced him in 1973. In 1978, she married William Robert
Prestie, an eccentric Canadian 17 years her junior. This led to
difficulties with her children. She had a long dispute with her daughter
Judith over the estate of Judith's father Marcus; in 1979 Judith
committed suicide.
Also in 1979, Caldwell suffered a stroke,
which left her unable to speak, though she could still write. (She had
been deaf since about 1965.) Her daughter Peggy accused Prestie of
abusing and exploiting Caldwell, and there was a legal battle over her
substantial assets.
Born in Manchester, The United Kingdom, September 07, 1900, she died of heart failure in Greenwich, Conn, August 30, 1985.
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