Journals of Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand

Dutton, 1997 - Biography & Autobiography - 727 pages

Rarely has a writer and thinker of the stature of Ayn Rand afforded us access to her most intimate thoughts and feelings. Yet throughout her remarkable lifetime, beginning with her arrival in America from Soviet Russia as a passionately ambitious young woman, to her final years of unparalleled fame as a novelist/philosopher, Ayn Rand kept voluminous journals. We share her painful memories of Communist Russia and her struggles to bring them to dramatic life in We the Living. And we see the step-by-step emergence of the characters and plot of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, along with the years of painstaking research that would imbue the novels with their powerful authenticity. We witness Rand wrestling with the challenges of fiction writing and responding with her usual impassioned fire to the important social, political, and artistic events of the day. We are with her as she explores the questions of philosophy and builds the foundations of what will become the towering philosophy called Objectivism. There are tantalizing reflections on the legendary screenplay she wrote for Hollywood about the making of the atomic bomb - a brilliant piece never put on film. There is even advice to the director of the famous movie version of The Fountainhead, and elsewhere an intriguing aside on Rand's vision of the place of sex in the novel and in life.

Contents

• The Hollywood Years: 3
• We the Living: 20
• First Philosophic Journal: 66

About the author

Ayn Rand, 1905 - 1982 Novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand was born Alice Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia. She graduated with highest honors in history from the University of Petrograd in 1924, and she came to the United States in 1926 with dreams of becoming a screenwriter. In 1929, she married actor Charles "Frank" O'Connor. After arriving in Hollywood, Rand was spotted by Cecil B. DeMille standing at the gate of his studio and gave her a job as an extra in King of Kings. She also worked as a script reader and a wardrobe girl and, in 1932, she sold Red Pawn to Universal Studios. In the 1950's, she returned to New York City where she hosted a Saturday night group she called "the collective." It was also during this time that Rand received a fan letter from a young man, Nathaniel Branden. She was impressed with his letter, and she wrote him back. Her correspondence with him eventually led to an affair that lasted over a decade. He became her chief spokesperson and codified the principles of her novels into a strict philosophical system (objectivism) and founded an institute bearing his name. Their affair ended in 1968 when Branden got involved with another one of Rand's disciples. According to Rand, people are inherently selfish and act only out of personal interest making a selfish act, a rational one. It is from this belief that her characters play out their lives. Rand's first novel was "We the Living" (1936) and was followed by "Anthem" (1938), "The Fountainhead" (1943), and "Atlas Shrugged" (1957). All four of her novels made the top ten of the controversial list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century. On March 6, 1982, Ayn Rand died in her New York City apartment.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Journals of Ayn Rand; Political Theory
• Author: Ayn Rand
• Editors: David Harriman, Leonard Peikoff
• Contributor: Leonard Peikoff
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Dutton, 1997
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Mar 12, 2008
• ISBN: 0525943706, 9780525943709
• Length: 727 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Literary Figures; Biography & Autobiography / Philosophers; Philosophy / General