Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead

Contributions by B John Bayer, Michael S. Berliner, Andrew Bernstein, Tore Boeckmann, Jeff Britting, Onkar Ghate, Shoshana Milgram, Amy Peikoff, Richard Ralston, Dina Schein, Tara Smith, Leonard Peikoff Edited by Robert Mayhew

Publication date:

28 November 2006

Length of book:

364 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739115770

Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead is still remembered and enjoyed today as the philosopher's first best-selling novel. In this unique study of The Fountainhead, Dr. Robert Mayhew brings together historical, literary, and philosophical essays that analyze the novel's style, its use of humor, and its virtues of productivity, independence, and integrity. The essays make extensive use of previously unpublished material from the Ayn Rand Archives, offering a new collection of material to explore and consider. This book leads through the creation, publication, and reception of the 1943 novel that made Rand famous. Mayhew's collection of essays offers an insightful and critical perspective on the much regarded novel, and is a necessary read for anyone interested in Ayn Rand and great American literature.

Part 1 The History of The Fountainhead
Chapter 2 The Fountainhead from Notebook to Novel: The Composition of Ayn Rand's First Projection of the Ideal Man
Chapter 3 Howard Roark and Frank Lloyd Wright
Chapter 4 Publishing The Fountainhead
Chapter 5 The Fountainhead Reviews
Chapter 6 Adapting The Fountainhead to Film
Part 7 The Fountainhead as Literature and as Philosophy
Chapter 8 The Fountainhead as a Romantic Novel
Chapter 9 What Might Be and Ought to Be: Aristotle's Poetics and The Fountainhead
Chapter 10 Three Inspirations for the Ideal Man: Cyrus Paltons, Enjolras, and Cyrano de Bergerac
Chapter 11 Understanding the "Rape" Scene in The Fountainhead
Chapter 12 Humor in The Fountainhead
Chapter 13 The Fountainhead and the Spirit of Youth
Chapter 14 The Basic Motivation of the Creators and the Masses in ,The Fountainhead
Chapter 15 Independence in The Fountainhead
Chapter 16 Roark's Integrity
Chapter 17 A Moral Dynamiting
Chapter 18 Epilogue
Chapter 19 An Interview with Leonard Peikoff

Not only is Dr. Mayhew's book the first compilation of scholarly essays on Ayn Rand's classic novel The Fountainhead, it also contains some brilliant work and insights of many of the top Ayn Rand scholars working today. I'm very excited to see that The Fountainhead-one of the greatest and most popular novels of the 20th century-is now receiving the kind of scholarly attention that it clearly deserves.