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THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand

To Frank O’Connor

Copyright (c) 1943 The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Copyright (c) renewed 1971 by Ayn Rand.
All rights reserved. For information address The Bobbs-Merrill Company, a
division of Macmillan, Inc., 866 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10022.

Introduction to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition

Many people have asked me how I feel about the fact that The Fountainhead has
been in print for twenty-five years. I cannot say that I feel anything in
particular, except a kind of quiet satisfaction. In this respect, my attitude
toward my writing is best expressed by a statement of Victor Hugo: "If a writer
wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away."
Certain writers, of whom I am one, do not live, think or write on the range of
the moment. Novels, in the proper sense of the word, are not written to vanish
in a month or a year. That most of them do, today, that they are written and
published as if they were magazines, to fade as rapidly, is one of the sorriest
aspects of today’s literature, and one of the clearest indictments of its
dominant esthetic philosophy: concrete-bound, journalistic Naturalism which has
now reached its dead end in the inarticulate sounds of panic.
Longevity-predominantly, though not exclusively-is the prerogative of a literary
school which is virtually non-existent today: Romanticism. This is not the place
for a dissertation on the nature of Romantic fiction, so let me state--for the
record and for the benefit of those college students who have never been allowed
to discover it--only that Romanticism is the conceptual school of art. It deals,
not with the random trivia of the day, but with the timeless, fundamental,
universal problems and values of human existence. It does not record or
photograph; it creates and projects. It is concerned--in the words of
Aristotle--not with things as they are, but with things as they might be and
ought to be.
And for the benefit of those who consider relevance to one’s own time as of
crucial importance, I will add, in regard to our age, that never has there been
a time when men have so desperately needed a projection of things as they ought
to be.
I do not mean to imply that I knew, when I wrote it, that The Fountainhead would
remain in print for twenty-five years. I did not think of any specific time
period. I knew only that it was a book that ought to live. It did.
But that I knew it over twenty-five years ago--that I knew it while The
1

Fountainhead was being rejected by twelve publishers, some of whom declared that
it was "too intellectual,"
"too controversial" and would not sell because no audience existed for it--that
was the difficult part of its history; difficult for me to bear. I mention it
here for the sake of any other writer of my kind who might have to face the same
battle--as a reminder of the fact that it can be done.
It would be impossible for me to discuss The Fountainhead or any part of its
history without mentioning the man who made it possible for me to write it: my
husband, Frank O’Connor.
In a play I wrote in my early thirties, Ideal, the heroine, a screen star,
speaks for me when she says: "I want to see, real, living, and in the hours of
my own days, that glory I create as an illusion. I want it real. I want to know
that there is someone, somewhere, who wants it, too. Or else what is the use of
seeing it, and working, and burning oneself for an impossible vision? A spirit,
too, needs fuel. It can run dry."
Frank was the fuel. He gave me, in the hours of my own days, the reality of that
sense of life, which created The Fountainhead--and he helped me to maintain it
over a long span of years when there was nothing around us but a gray desert of
people and events that evoked nothing but contempt and revulsion. The essence of
the bond between us is the fact that neither of us has ever wanted or been
tempted to settle for anything less than the world presented in The
Fountainhead. We never will.
If there is in me any touch of the Naturalistic writer who records "real-life"
dialogue for use in a novel, it has been exercised only in regard to Frank. For
instance, one of the most effective lines in The Fountainhead comes at the end
of Part II, when, in reply to Toohey’s question: "Why don’t you tell me what you
think of me?" Roark answers: "But I don’t think of you." That line was Frank’s
answer to a different type of person, in a somewhat similar context. "You’re
casting pearls without getting even a pork chop in return," was said by Frank to
me, in regard to my professional position. I gave that line to Dominique at
Roark’s trial.
I did not feel discouragement very often, and when I did, it did not last longer
than overnight. But there was one evening, during the writing of The
Fountainhead, when I felt so profound an indignation at the state of "things as
they are" that it seemed as if I would never regain the energy to move one step
farther toward "things as they ought to be." Frank talked to me for hours, that
night. He convinced me of why one cannot give up the world to those one
despises. By the time he finished, my discouragement was gone; it never came
back in so intense a form.
I had been opposed to the practice of dedicating books; I had held that a book
is addressed to any reader who proves worthy of it. But, that night, I told
Frank that I would dedicate The Fountainhead to him because he had saved it. And
one of my happiest moments, about two years later, was given to me by the look
on his face when he came home, one day, and saw the page-proofs of the book,
headed by the page that stated in cold, clear, objective print: To Frank
O’Connor.
I have been asked whether I have changed in these past twenty-five years. No, I
am the same--only more so. Have my ideas changed? No, my fundamental
convictions, my view of life and of man, have never changed, from as far back as
I can remember, but my knowledge of their applications has grown, in scope and
in precision. What is my present evaluation of The Fountainhead? I am as proud
2

of it as I was on the day when I finished writing it.
Was The Fountainhead written for the purpose of presenting my philosophy? Here,
I shall quote from The Goal of My Writing, an address I gave at Lewis and Clark
College, on October 1, 1963: "This is the motive and purpose of my writing; the

THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand

To Frank O’Connor

Copyright (c) renewed 1971 by Ayn Rand.

division of Macmillan, Inc., 866 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10022.

Introduction to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition

Many people have asked me how I feel about the fact that The Fountainhead has

been in print for twenty-five years. I cannot say that I feel anything in

particular, except a kind of quiet satisfaction. In this respect, my attitude

toward my writing is best expressed by a statement of Victor Hugo: "If a writer

wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away."

Certain writers, of whom I am one, do not live, think or write on the range of

the moment. Novels, in the proper sense of the word, are not written to vanish

in a month or a year. That most of them do, today, that they are written and

published as if they were magazines, to fade as rapidly, is one of the sorriest

aspects of today’s literature, and one of the clearest indictments of its

dominant esthetic philosophy: concrete-bound, journalistic Naturalism which has

now reached its dead end in the inarticulate sounds of panic.

Longevity-predominantly, though not exclusively-is the prerogative of a literary

school which is virtually non-existent today: Romanticism. This is not the place

for a dissertation on the nature of Romantic fiction, so let me state--for the

record and for the benefit of those college students who have never been allowed

to discover it--only that Romanticism is the conceptual school of art. It deals,

not with the random trivia of the day, but with the timeless, fundamental,

universal problems and values of human existence. It does not record or

photograph; it creates and projects. It is concerned--in the words of

Aristotle--not with things as they are, but with things as they might be and

ought to be.

And for the benefit of those who consider relevance to one’s own time as of

crucial importance, I will add, in regard to our age, that never has there been

a time when men have so desperately needed a projection of things as they ought

to be.

I do not mean to imply that I knew, when I wrote it, that The Fountainhead would

remain in print for twenty-five years. I did not think of any specific time

period. I knew only that it was a book that ought to live. It did.

But that I knew it over twenty-five years ago--that I knew it while The

1

Fountainhead was being rejected by twelve publishers, some of whom declared that

it was "too intellectual,"

"too controversial" and would not sell because no audience existed for it--that

was the difficult part of its history; difficult for me to bear. I mention it

here for the sake of any other writer of my kind who might have to face the same

battle--as a reminder of the fact that it can be done.

It would be impossible for me to discuss The Fountainhead or any part of its

history without mentioning the man who made it possible for me to write it: my

husband, Frank O’Connor.

In a play I wrote in my early thirties, Ideal, the heroine, a screen star,

speaks for me when she says: "I want to see, real, living, and in the hours of

my own days, that glory I create as an illusion. I want it real. I want to know

that there is someone, somewhere, who wants it, too. Or else what is the use of

seeing it, and working, and burning oneself for an impossible vision? A spirit,

too, needs fuel. It can run dry."

Frank was the fuel. He gave me, in the hours of my own days, the reality of that

sense of life, which created The Fountainhead--and he helped me to maintain it

over a long span of years when there was nothing around us but a gray desert of

people and events that evoked nothing but contempt and revulsion. The essence of

the bond between us is the fact that neither of us has ever wanted or been

tempted to settle for anything less than the world presented in The

Fountainhead. We never will.

If there is in me any touch of the Naturalistic writer who records "real-life"

dialogue for use in a novel, it has been exercised only in regard to Frank. For

instance, one of the most effective lines in The Fountainhead comes at the end

of Part II, when, in reply to Toohey’s question: "Why don’t you tell me what you

think of me?" Roark answers: "But I don’t think of you." That line was Frank’s

answer to a different type of person, in a somewhat similar context. "You’re

casting pearls without getting even a pork chop in return," was said by Frank to

me, in regard to my professional position. I gave that line to Dominique at

Roark’s trial.

I did not feel discouragement very often, and when I did, it did not last longer

than overnight. But there was one evening, during the writing of The

Fountainhead, when I felt so profound an indignation at the state of "things as

they are" that it seemed as if I would never regain the energy to move one step

farther toward "things as they ought to be." Frank talked to me for hours, that

night. He convinced me of why one cannot give up the world to those one

despises. By the time he finished, my discouragement was gone; it never came

back in so intense a form.

I had been opposed to the practice of dedicating books; I had held that a book

is addressed to any reader who proves worthy of it. But, that night, I told

Frank that I would dedicate The Fountainhead to him because he had saved it. And

one of my happiest moments, about two years later, was given to me by the look

on his face when he came home, one day, and saw the page-proofs of the book,

headed by the page that stated in cold, clear, objective print: To Frank

O’Connor.

I have been asked whether I have changed in these past twenty-five years. No, I

am the same--only more so. Have my ideas changed? No, my fundamental

convictions, my view of life and of man, have never changed, from as far back as

I can remember, but my knowledge of their applications has grown, in scope and

in precision. What is my present evaluation of The Fountainhead? I am as proud

2

of it as I was on the day when I finished writing it.

Was The Fountainhead written for the purpose of presenting my philosophy? Here,

I shall quote from The Goal of My Writing, an address I gave at Lewis and Clark

College, on October 1, 1963: "This is the motive and purpose of my writing; the