At the age of nine she decided to make fiction writing her career. At age six she taught herself to read and two years later discovered her first fictional hero in a French magazine for children, thus capturing the heroic vision that sustained her throughout her life. ( Intro to Penguin edition, by Leonard Peikoff.)Īyn Rand was born in St. The novel was made into a motion picture in 1949, starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal, for which Ayn Rand wrote the screenplay.

The Fountainhead portrays individualism versus collectivism, not in politics, but in man’s soul it presents the motivations and the basic premises that produce the character of an individualist or a collectivist. In the process and the subsequent courtroom trial, he makes his stand clear, risking his career, his love, and his life. Having no recourse in law, Roark takes matters into his own hands in a famous act of dynamiting. During construction, however, Roark’s building is thoroughly mutilated.

Roark agrees to design the project secretly on condition that it be built strictly according to his drawings. He has to withstand not merely professional rejection, but also the enmity of Ellsworth Toohey, leading humanitarian of Gail Wynand, powerful publisher and of Dominique Francon, the beautiful columnist who loves him fervently yet, for reasons you will discover, is bent on destroying his career.Īt the climax of the novel, the untalented but successful architect Peter Keating, a college friend of his, pleads with Roark for help in designing a prestigious project that Roark himself wanted but was too unpopular to win. Expelled from a prestigious architectural school, refused work, reduced to laboring in a granite quarry, Roark is never stopped. A man whose arrogant pride in his work is fully earned, Roark is an innovator who battles against a tradition-worshipping society. The Fountainhead introduces the world to architect Howard Roark, an intransigent, egoistic hero of colossal stature. As fresh today as it was then, here is a novel about a hero-and about those who try to destroy him. This edition contains a special Afterword by Rand's literary executor, Leonard Peikoff which includes excerpts from Ayn Rand's own notes on the making of The Fountainhead.

This instant classic is the story of an intransigent young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him. When The Fountainhead was first published, Ayn Rand's daringly original literary vision and her groundbreaking philosophy, Objectivism, won immediate worldwide interest and acclaim.

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