Facsimile book

This privately printed and bound volume reproduces Ayn Rand’s earliest written notes on the story she originally called “Second-hand lives,” and which became famous as The Fountainhead. Although she had a lot of work ahead of her, when Rand sat down to write these notes in December 1935, she had already identified the essence of the story: “a defense of egoism in its real meaning.” Several pages later, she writes that a “new set of values is needed to combat this modern dreariness” in ethics. After its publication, Rand would give the book’s theme as “individualism versus collectivism, not in politics, but in man’s soul.” Although not yet formulated that way in these earliest notes, that theme is nonetheless evident throughout. Eight years after she wrote these notes, The Fountainhead was published, soon becoming Rand’s first bestseller.

The 8.5″ x 11″ volume includes high-quality images of thirty-four original handwritten pages and a page-by-page transcript for a total of 73 pages. This is #2 of 5 of this limited-edition book.

FMV: $1,000