Essays on Ayn Rand's "We the Living"

Ayn Rand remains a truly significant figure of modern philosophy. Her unique vision of a world in which man, relying on reason, acts wholly for his own good is skillfully developed and illustrated in her most famous novels, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. But Rand's first novel, We the Living, a lesser-known but no less important book, offers an early form of the author's nascent philosophy—the philosophy Rand later called Objectivism.In the second edition, Robert Mayhew once again brings together pre-eminent scholars of Rand's writing. The edition includes three new chapters, as well as an epilogue by renowned Rand-scholar Leonard Peikoff. In part a history of We the Living, from its earliest drafts to the Italian film later based upon it, Mayhew's collection goes on to explore the enduring significance of Rand's first novel as a work both of philosophy and of literature. For Ayn Rand scholars and fans alike, this enhanced second edition is a compelling examination of a novel that set the tone for some of the most influential philosophical literature to follow.

With his edited collections of essays on Ayn Rand’s novels, Professor Mayhew has set a new standard for scholarship on these important and works, which have too often been ignored by academia. Essays on Ayn Rand’s We the Living was the first of these groundbreaking collections, and the second edition adds to what was already an illuminating volume several new essays that exemplify the increasing sophistication that this series has contributed to our understanding of Rand as a novelist and philosopher.

Robert Mayhew is professor of philosophy at Seton Hall University.