The
Fountainhead
A young architect struggles to break free of society's conventions,
and falls into a violent, explosive love affair with a woman
bent on defeating him. It is the story of an innovator - architect
Howard Roark - and his battle against a tradition-worshipping
society. In Roark, she presented for the first time the kind
of hero whose depiction was the chief goal of her writing:
the ideal man, man as "he could be and ought to be."
The
Fountainhead was rejected by twelve publishers. When it was
accepted by Bobbs-Merrill and finally published in 1943, it
made history by becoming a best seller through word-of-mouth
and gained for its author lasting recognition as a champion
of individualism.
Ayn
Rand named her philosophy, "Objectivism" and described
it as a philosophy for living on earth. Objectivism is an
integrated system of thought that defines the abstract principles
by which a man must think and act if he is to live the life
proper to man.
Following
its publication in 1943, The Fountainhead earned an immediate
place in the literature of the 20th century. Setting forth
Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, it forever changed the
thinking of an entire generation, and inspired a new kind
of intellectually ambitious literature.
"My
philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic
being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his
life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity,
and reason as his only absolute."
-- Ayn Rand
For
more on Ayn Rand visit www.aynrand.org
