First US edition, second printing. Presentation copy inscribed by the author on title, "To Mary - Cordially - Ayn Rand. Oct. 5, 1950". Anthem is the second novel Rand published in the West. The reception of her first - We The Living (1936) - had been critically ambiguous and, in terms of sales, poor, so much so that no American publisher could be persuaded to publish this book (it was however published in the UK by Cassell in 1938). Indeed only after the success of The Fountainhead and the end of the Second World War did Anthem appear in this American edition. This second printing of February 1947 comprises the "book store edition" of Number 1 of Volume III of The Freeman. The Freeman was the journal owned by two of Rand's friends, Leonard Read and William Mullendore, "devoted exclusively to individualism, limited government, and economic liberty."
The post Anthem. appeared first on Peter Harrington.