Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| We the Living | 1936 |
| The Fountainhead | 1943 |
| Atlas Shrugged | 1957 |
| Ideal | 2015 |
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
| Anthem | 1938 |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
| The Early Ayn Rand: A Selection from Her Unpublished Fiction | 1984 |
Publication Order of Plays
| Night of January 16th | 1936 |
| The Unconquered | 2014 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand | 1961 |
| The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism | 1964 |
| Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal | 1966 |
| The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature | 1969 |
| The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution / Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution | 1971 |
| Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology | 1979 |
| Philosophy: Who Needs It | 1982 |
| The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought | 1989 |
| The Ayn Rand Column | 1991 |
| Ayn Rand’s Marginalia | 1995 |
| Letters of Ayn Rand | 1995 |
| Journals of Ayn Rand | 1997 |
| Russian Writings on Hollywood | 1999 |
| The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers | 2000 |
| The Art of Nonfiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers | 2001 |
| Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of Her Q & A | 2005 |
About Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand (1905 to 1982) was a Russian-born American novelist and philosopher, known for the novels “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” and for the philosophical system she named Objectivism. Her books have sold over 37 million copies.
She was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum in Saint Petersburg on 2 February 1905, the eldest of three daughters of a pharmacist whose business was nationalised after the October Revolution. She studied history at Petrograd State University and moved to the United States in 1926. In 1932 she sold a screenplay, “Red Pawn”, to Universal Studios, although it was never produced. Her courtroom drama “Night of January 16th”, in which a jury drawn from the audience decides the ending, was staged in Hollywood in 1934 and opened on Broadway in 1935.
Her first novel, the semi-autobiographical “We the Living” (1936), is set in Soviet Russia and sold slowly at first. The novella “Anthem”, published in England in 1938, imagines a collectivist future in which the word “I” has been forgotten. Her first major success came in 1943 with “The Fountainhead”, a novel about an uncompromising architect named Howard Roark, which twelve publishers rejected before Bobbs-Merrill accepted it. Rand sold the film rights to Warner Bros. and wrote the screenplay for the 1949 film.
“Atlas Shrugged” (1957) depicts a dystopian United States in which leading industrialists, scientists and artists go on strike under the leadership of John Galt and withdraw to a hidden valley. It became an international bestseller despite many negative reviews, and it was her last completed work of fiction. She then turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, editing her own periodicals and publishing essay collections such as “For the New Intellectual” (1961), “The Virtue of Selfishness” (1964) and “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” (1966).
Rand died on 6 March 1982. Her fiction received mixed reviews from literary critics, and academic philosophers have generally ignored or rejected her philosophy, although her writings have influenced some right-libertarians and conservatives. Posthumous publications include “Philosophy: Who Needs It” (1982), the unpublished fiction gathered in “The Early Ayn Rand” (1984), her letters and journals, and “Ideal”, a novel written in 1934 and first published in 2015.
Photo: Talbot (published by the Bobbs-Merrill Company), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).