This volume contains the three novels that conform the TRILOGY OF DESIRE, the acclaimed series of novels about the mogul Frank Cowperwood, a businessman based on the real-life streetcar tycoon Charles Yerkes. In the first novel, Frank Cowperwood, whose father is a banker, makes his first money by buying cheap soaps on the market and selling them back with profit to a grocer. Later, he gets a job in Henry Waterman & Company, and leaves it for Tighe & Company. He also marries an affluent widow, in spite of his young age. Over the years, he starts misusing municipal funds with the aid of the City Treasurer. In the second novel, already rich, Cowperwood moves to Chicago with his new wife Aileen. He decides to take over the street-railway system. He bankrupts several opponents with the help of John J. McKenty and other political allies. In the Stoic, the conclusion to the trilogy, and already a respected Tycoon, he decides to move to London, England, where he intends to take over and develop the underground railway system.