Building Objectivism in Her Own Pen

The Ayn Rand Manuscripts: Rand’s ”passionate search for passionless truth.”

Secure the world’s largest, privately owned trove of Ayn Rand Manuscripts including:

Atlas Shrugged: Inside “The Utopia of Greed,” Outside the Library of Congress

Twenty of the approximately thirty surviving pages of the heavily revised penscript of Atlas Shrugged crown the collection. All pages come from two chapters in the novel’s climactic Part III, “A is A,” within “The Utopia of Greed,” and “Anti Greed.” Witness Ayn Rand construct:

the passage in which Francisco admits to himself, Dagny, and Galt, with brutally selfish honesty, the inevitable, “but of course,” love between Dagny and Galt.

“This is only a modest beginning:” the penultimate betrayal of Dr. Robert Stadler, when he publicly endorses Project X, of which he has no previous knowledge.

You’ve Never Read It. Now You Can Own It.

Never published, this full-length article, written to and for herself, few deletions or revisions (unique among Rand manuscripts), “Consciousness, Purpose and Happiness,” September 20, 1955, explains with characteristically ruthless logic Rand’s uniquely Objectivist premise that purposeful, goal-directed thinking prescribes human happiness. Written in preparation for the final wording of Galt’s speech, Ayn Rand elucidates “the unique property of a human consciousness,” demanding from herself every ounce of clarity she could summon and sculpt. Finally, she arrives at the most astonishing, utterly unanswerable conclusion you’ll never see coming. Imagine owning an unpublished Rand article written in her own pen!

Would You Publish Rand’s Whodunit: Kennedy or Hitler?

“That’s that. Get yourself another publisher.” Was that Fuhrer Hitler, President Kennedy, or her publisher Bennett Cerf who said this to Ayn Rand, after reading “The Fascist New Frontier,” ? Only here, in these 53 handwritten pages will you witness what she wrote originally in its entirety and what her publisher read .

Whodunit – Kennedy or Hitler: “The Germans really are too good – therefore people have ganged up on them to protect themselves”? In these 53 handwritten pages, including Rand’s extensive revisions and deletions, “The Fascist New Frontier” dares its largely pro-Kennedy audience to identify who authored and executed the indistinguishable “fine, progressive liberal program” of America’s Kennedy and Germany’s Hitler. (Fascism, noted one future head of state, is “the right thing for Germany.”) Often cited as Rand’s most provocative, only whodunit, speech: “The Fascist New Frontier,” juxtaposes passages from Kennedy and the Nazis bearing striking similarities, a number of which Rand deleted. Only this singular Ayn Rand speech, “The Fascist New Frontier,” changed the course of her personal and professional life. No other manuscript of hers claims this historic personal and professional distinction.

250+ Handwritten Pages, “Girl Reporter” Rand vs. The Los Angeles Times

“And then, listen to the speeches of our present Administration,” Ayn Rand wrote in her emphatically angular, prescient pen for the LA Times, “and ask yourself the same question.” Which question and which administration? Discover for yourself in Rand’s own prescient pen within these 24 full-length manuscripts she wrote in her inaugural article for the Los Angeles Times — and ask yourself if she predicted Obama’s administration (and its victims) more than half a century ago.

As her fame grew, Rand wrote 26 successful newspaper columns for The LA Times, her ambitious attempt to unravel topical issues and current events from her own uniquely historic, Objectivist viewpoint. From June 7 through December 2, she illuminated subjects as varied as the Cuban Missile Crisis, academia’s “peace movements,” Marilyn Monroe, and the start of her own career. “I am addressing it individually to each of you,” she writes. “You have helped me to prove once more a conviction of mine which is shared by few of today’s intellectuals …”

Of special interest are Rand’s extensive revisions and deletions, in red ink and pencil, her most precise formulations for a Los Angeles audience. In her inaugural article, “Introducing Objectivism,” published as “Ayn Rand Ties Her Beliefs to Today’s World,” she offers a thumbnail sketch, “standing on one foot,” of Objectivist metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics. Here it is–Objectivism on one foot in Ayn Rand’s pen ultimate!

Rand wrote her editor at the LAT that she loved “being a girl reporter”. Twenty-four Full-length Autograph Manuscripts Signed (“Ayn Rand”) and dated, some 260 pages, composed as a monument to that spirit which was hers –and hers alone.

“Howard Roark Laughed” – Rand’s Untouched First edition, Signed by Cast

The only first edition copy of The Fountainhead of its kind in existence, from Rand’s library, signed to her by thirteen members of the cast and principals of the 1949 movie, The Fountainhead, including Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, director Vidor, and producer Blanke, this was Rand’s personal copy of The Fountainhead in First edition in First Issue dust jacket, protected in a blue morocco clamshell box, gilt-lettered on spine. Accompanying this unique copy of The Fountainhead are the final shooting script, two still photographs taken during filming, three posters, and seven lobby cards. (A later printing of Gone with the Wind, signed by the cast, recently fetched $85,000)

From Ayn Rand’s Library, Eight Heavily Annotated Non-fiction Books

Not only are these Rand’s personal copies of eight books from her library, but passages are Rand-festooned with her comments, questions, and evaluations. (“That woman is a sewer,” she writes of McCarthy.) Volumes include Rand’s research for Atlas Shrugged (Henry’s This Fascinating Railroad Business, 1942-3) to her observations for The New Left (McCarthy’s The Humanist in the Bathtub, 1964) and ecology (Beckmann’s Eco-Hysterics and the Technophobes, 1973).

“The End,” to Atlas. Own the Moment

The only original snapshot, taken in Rand’s New York City apartment, captured by friend and future biographer, Barbara Branden, shows a beaming Ayn Rand moments after penning “The End,” to Atlas. This original black and white photo contains Branden’s penscript at top margin “completion of ‘Atlas Shrugged’, with ” ’57″ penned at bottom margin. Who knew then what we know now about the future of the woman pictured here in all her triumph?