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RAND, AYN. (1905-1982). Russian-American novelist best known for The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Printed DS. (“Ayn Rand”). 2pp. 4to. N.p., October 18, 1977. A page from Rand’s newsletter The Objectivist Calendar, Number 10, October 1977, with a section on the verso entitled “Questions and Answers,” about undertaking a career as a writer, inscribed, “To Peter T. Manzo – Cordially – Ayn Rand 10/18/77” (Peter T. Manzo, 1947-2019, a New Jersey minister and Ayn Rand collector). The printed section beneath Rand’s inscription is taken from a Q&A following her lecture at the Ford Hall Forum in April, 1977. “Q: For those who seek a career as a writer in the present world, what studies or readings do you recommend in preparation? And do you foresee a greater prospect of success in writing political or other essays rather than novels? A: First, I would recommend, above all, that you never take any classes in writing. You will not learn anything that way. Second, there can be no such thing as a rule establishing a greater likelihood of success in writing fiction or nonfiction. Your approach to these questions is all wrong. If you want to be a writer, ask yourself first of all what you want to say. That will determine in what form you will say it —whether it's fiction or nonfiction. The next question to ask yourself is: why do I think that people will be interested in hearing this? Do I have something new to say? Is what I want to say important and, if so, why? Or am I just planning a rehash of what everybody has heard millions of times before? If you can answer these questions properly, you're on your way to becoming a writer. These are the first steps. Then you must develop your own understanding of what you regard as good writing or bad writing. You do it by identifying the quality of the books you read. Whenever you like something, ask yourself, if it's good — why? Whenever you don't like something, ask yourself, if it's bad — why? In this way you will acquire a set of principles of writing. But you have to be the author of that set. You have to understand it and it has to be rational, i.e., you have to have reasons for the answers you give yourself and the principles you adopt.” Born into an assimilated Russian-Jewish family, Rand’s adolescence was disrupted by the 1917 revolution, during which the Bolsheviks confiscated her father’s business and forced the family into exile in the Crimea. Deeply affected by these events, Rand embraced atheism and became one of the first women to be admitted to Petrograd State University where she studied philosophy, history and literature. Despite being part of a brief purge of bourgeois university students, Rand graduated in 1924 and traveled to the United States in 1926, determined to become a Hollywood screenwriter. After supporting 1940 Republican presidential nominee Wendell Willkie, Rand’s work grew increasingly political. She extolled laissez-faire capitalism, individualism and libertarian ideals in her 1943 novel The Fountainhead, which became a bestseller despite its mixed critical reception. In 1957, she published her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, which codified her philosophy of Objectivism in an epic dystopian novel. Rand later defined Objectivism as “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute,” (stated in the Appendix of Atlas Shrugged). She espoused her beliefs through lectures and, from 1962 until 1976, in her newsletters The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, The Ayn Rand Letter, and The Objectivist Calendar. This excerpt was later included in Robert Mayhew’s 2005 book Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of Her Q & A. Rand spoke as part of the Ford Hall Forum lecture series 19 times between 1961 and 1981. Folded with light evidence of prior mounting and sunning that affects the quoted passage – otherwise fine.