This epic story of money, power and a man's struggle to succeed on his own terms is a paean to individualism and humanity's creative potential. These include, perhaps most troublesome of all, the ambitious Dominique Francon, who may just prove to be Roarke's equal. Defying the conventions of the world around him, he embraces a battle over two decades against a double-dealing crew of rivals who will stop at nothing to bring him down. They are all available in Signet editions, as is the magnificent statement of her artistic credo, The Romantic Manifesto.Her first major literary success, Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead is an exalted view of her Objectivist philosophy, portraying a visionary artist struggling against the dull, conformist dogma of his peers a book of ambition, power, gold and love, published in Penguin Modern Classics.Īrchitect Howard Roark is as unyielding as the granite he blasts to build with. The fundamentals of her philosophy are put forth in three nonfiction books, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, The Virtues of Selfishness, and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Rand's unique philosophy, Objectivism, has gained a worldwide audience. It was with the publication of The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957) that she achieved her spectacular success. She has a subtle and ingenious mind and the capacity of writing brilliantly, beautifully, bitterly.This is the only novel of ideas written by an American woman that I can recall.'- The New York TimesĪbout the Author Born February 2, 1905, Ayn Rand published her first novel, We the Living, in 1936. As fresh today as it was then, Rand's provocative novel presents one of the most challenging ideas in all of fiction-that man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress.

This modern classic is the story of intransigent young architect Howard Roark, whose integrity was as unyielding as granite.of Dominique Francon, the exquisitely beautiful woman who loved Roark passionately, but married his worst enemy.and of the fanatic denunciation unleashed by an enraged society against a great creator.

But the book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, the threat of fascism.īook Synopsis The revolutionary literary vision that sowed the seeds of Objectivism, Ayn Rand's groundbreaking philosophy, and brought her immediate worldwide acclaim. About the Book On the surface, a story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey.

The fountainhead original book