From Library Journal
Rand's dark portrait of the future was first released in England in 1938 and reedited for publication in the United States in 1946. This 50th-anniversary edition includes a scholarly introduction and a facsimile of the original British version, which bears Rand's handwritten alterations for its American debut.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Ayn Rand's Anthem is a short dystopic novel about a man who escapes a society from which all individuality has been squeezed. Its allegory is crudely transparent, and the ideas have lost their political urgency. (The book was published in 1938, a decade before Orwell's 1984.) But Anthem provides a good introduction to Rand's philosophy of "objectivism," which is built on individuality, freedom, and reason. Paul Meier is an excellent choice for the novel's first-person narrator--he manages to maintain an urgency in his voice, pleading but never whining, mirroring the main character's struggle against his totalitarian world. D.B. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


Joan DeArmond, Fact Forum News, Dallas
In her usage of the English language she combines clarity of expression with prose of poetic grace. Here, indeed, is an anthem-an anthem, not in the idiom of music, but in the more difficult medium of words alone. This is the most beautiful, the most inspiring novel this reviewer has ever read. It is an ethical and philosophical rather than a religious dedication to freedom and the individual.


All-American Books, New Rochelle, NY
Reading this inspired little story is a rewarding and satisfying experience which no American should deny himself.


Book Description
Written with all the power and conviction that made THE FOUNTAINHEAD a classic of American letters, Ayn Rand's ANTHEM is a hymn to man's independent spirit and to the highest word in the human language - "Ego." First written in 1937, ANTHEM was published in England, but was refused in publication in America, for reason which the reader might discover by reading it for himself. In 1946, it appeared as a pamphlet, issued by Pamphleteers, Inc., of Los Angeles. This is its first American publication in regular book form. ANTHEM is one of the most beautiful prose poems ever written. Ruth Alexander, the great Libertarian lecturer and columnist, has said in her column that ANTHEM is "tender and terrific - the greatest novel I have ever read, and I have covered the literary water front in seven languages. You will think - you will weep - you will be inspired to new determination not to let the creeping evil of collectivism happen here." It is written with such power and sincerity and beauty that every thinking American should read it. ANTHEM tells the story of a man who rediscovers the individualism and his own "I" - in a world of absolute collectivization, a world where sightless, joyless, selfless men exist for the sake of serving the State; where their work, their food and their mating are prescribed to them by order of the Collective's rulers in the name of society's welfare - a world which has lost all the achievements of science and civilization, when it lost their root, the independent mind, and has reverted to primitive savagery - a world where language contains no singular pronouns, where the "We" has replaced the "I," and where men are put to death for the crime of discovering and speaking the "unspeakable word." The story tells of one man who rebelled, of his struggle and his victory. Assigned to the life work of street sweeper by the rulers who resented his brilliant, questioning, unsubmissive mind - he becomes a scientist, secretly, risking his life for the sake of his quest for knowledge. In the midst of collective stagnation, where men toil at manual labor by the light of candles - he discovers electricity. In the midst of eugenic planning and State-controlled Palaces of Mating - he discovers a personal love and a woman of his own choice. In the midst of brutal morality which proclaims that man is only a sacrificial animal to the needs of others - he discovers that man's greatest moral duty is the pursuit of his own happiness. He endures danger, denunciation, imprisonment, torture - but he breaks the chains of the Collective, he escapes with the woman he loves, to start a new life in an uncharted wilderness, and he reaches the day when he is able to predict that "my home will! become the capital of a world where each man will be free to exist for his own sake." ANTHEM presents not merely a frightening projection of existing trends, but, more importantly, a positive answer to those trends and a weapon against them, a key to the world's moral crisis and to a new morality of individualism - a morality which, if accepted today, will save us from a future such as the one presented in this story.


Download Description
A stunning and brilliantly realized future world in which individuality has been crushed is the theme of Ayn Rand's bestselling masterpiece, "Anthem". Rand presents her tale of a man who dares to make individual choices, to seek knowledge in a dark age, to love the woman of his choice. In a society in which people have no name, no independence, and no values, he is hunted for the unpardonable crime: having the courage to stand above the crowd. Introduction by Leonard Peikoff.


About the Author
Ayn Rand is considered by many to be one of the greatest writers of her time. Her previously published works include the play THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 16TH, which ran on Broadway in the season of 1935-36, a novel WE THE LIVING published in 1936, ANTHEM, published in England in 1938, the FOUNTAINHEAD, published in 1943, and ATLAS SHRUGGED, published in 1957. She was born in Russia in 1905. She chose her career when she was nine years old. Ayn Rand said that she decided to be writer, not in order to save the world nor to serve her fellow men, but for the simple, personal, selfish, egotistical happiness of creating the kind of men and events she would like, respect and admire. She arrived in America in 1926. Her first work, WE THE LIVING, was published in 1936. ANTHEM was her second book. Ayn Rand passed away March 6, 1982.

ANNOTATION

This expanded edition of Ayn Rand's classic tale of a future dark age of the great "We"--in which individuals have no name, no independence, and no values--is a beautifully written, powerful novel that projects current social trends into the future, and anticipates such later Rand masterpieces as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Equality 7-2521 lives in the Dark Ages of the future, when all decisions are made by committee, all people live in collectives, all traces of individualism have been wiped out. But the spark of individual thought and freedom still burns in Equality 7-2521's breast, though he doesn't know what to call his passion to think and choose for himself, other than sinful. In a world where he is punished for being better than his brothers, he finds a tunnel from ancient times where he can be by himself to write and think. He discovers electricity - and the miracle of the love that a man can have for a woman. Equality 7-2521 comes close to losing his life for this because his knowledge was regarded as a treacherous blasphemy. In a world where the crowd is one - a great WE, he has rediscovered the lost and holy word - I.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

The difference between this long-forgotten exercise in paranoia and other futuristic visions of a world controlled by the state, such as Aldous Huxley's or George Orwell's, is the extremist tone of Rand's story. The author lived in a black-and-white world in which things social or communal are evil and things individual and selfish are exalted. This "anthem" culminates in a hymn to the concepts of "I" and "ego," where the rebels are those who resist group action; the oppressors are government officials and others who attempt to provide a safety net for the less fortunate. The production is not improved by the theatricality of narrator Paul Meier, which is reminiscent of a ham Victorian actor intoning an overwrought melodrama. Not recommended.-Mark Pumphrey, Polk Cty. P.L., Columbus, NC

AudioFile