SIGNED and Inscribed "affectionately" by "Ayn," an extraordinarily rare Publisher's Review Copy of the first edition of Ayn Rand's Anthem, the rarest of all her books, dated by the author in the month after publication. A splendid example protected in a custom clamshell box. 

Responding to a student's question decades later about Anthem's origin, Rand explained, "I got the idea in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word 'I'." (The Ayn Rand Column, 1998). This First ORIGINAL UNREVISED Edition (23,484 words) preceded Pamphleteers' 1946 First American edition (19,190 words) by eight years. While Rand originally conceived of Anthem as a play, and published it eventually as a pamphlet/novella, she divulged in a letter to Rose Wilder Lane: "If you are really wondering about it, Anthem is a poem" (Berliner: Letters of Ayn Rand, 293). "The most lyrical of any of her work, the most abstract and stylized in its literary method. It has the beauty and cadence of a prose poem" (Branden, 142). The poem, Anthem, distinguishes itself from Ayn Rand's full-length novels in its chronicle of "an intellectual event: the hero s discovery of the word 'I'". (Milgram: "Anthem in the Context of Related Literary Works: We are not like our brothers," 2024) Rand uses first-person narrative to develop the struggle of this discovery with a deft tension, so that turning the page to its climactic chapter offers readers an unsurpassed, emotionally violent power, when for the first time, we read: "I am. I think. I will." 

But Anthem, while distinguished in Rand's ouevre by its length, narrative style, and genre, is, in Rand s words, a preliminary sketching of The Fountainhead. "My whole theory of ethics is contained in Anthem. Everything I said in The Fountainhead is in Anthem, though in briefer form, but there explicitly, for all to see who are interested in ideas" (Berliner: LOAR, 275). "To say "I love you', one must know first how to say the 'I'" (The Fountainhead). 

An extremely good copy, publisher's red mottled cloth still bright, in a custom quarter-leather clamshell box. ORIGINAL dust jacket is complete with one closed tear and light edgewear. Presentation copy, inscribed to close friends, "To Rita and Morty - Affectionately/ Ayn/ June 22, 1938." Evidence suggests that "Rita" may be Rita Weiman (1885-1954), a Hollywood screenwriter and playwright. Publisher's Review slip laid in. No writings, markings or bookplates of any kind, save for Rand's inscription on the front flyleaf. In more than 50 years of hunting for rare Rand, I've seen nothing comparable. You'll never find a finer Signed first Edition copy. Book #vBP1401. $45,000. We specialize in Rare Ayn Rand, and other legends and landmarks.