Ayn Rand was born Alissa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg in 1905 and died in New York in 1982. She graduated from the University of Petrograd, emigrated to the United States in 1926 and worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood before her novels made her name. Leonard Peikoff, her student and friend from 1951 until her death, is the name credited beside hers on the edition of The Fountainhead listed here.
Rand wrote novels of ideas. Each one puts a single uncompromising person up against the pressure to conform. Britannica sums up her position as the belief that real achievement comes from individual ability, that laissez-faire capitalism suits talent best, and that selfishness is a virtue. Those are her claims, and readers have long argued over them. She later set out the philosophy she called Objectivism in nonfiction collections such as The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and The Romantic Manifesto.
Her novels are We the Living (1936), Anthem (1938), The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). By her own account, The Fountainhead was turned down by twelve publishers before Bobbs-Merrill took it. It then became her first major success. Warner Bros. filmed it in 1949 with King Vidor directing, Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal in the leads, and Rand writing the screenplay. The Library of Congress holds her papers, including drafts and proofs of her four novels.
Start with The Fountainhead. It is the book that made her reputation, and it introduces the architect Howard Roark, the kind of hero she wanted to write. If it works for you, Atlas Shrugged is the larger next step, and Anthem and We the Living fill out the fiction.
