To Lorine Pruette [Letter 256]

[Page 1]
September 3, 1946 

Dear Lorine Pruette: 

You are the only reviewer I know to whom I am happy to send a book of mine. 

It is a novelette which I wrote in 1937, but this is its first publication in America. I want you to read it, because it has the same relation to THE FOUNTAINHEAD as the preliminary sketches which artists draw for their future big canvases. I wrote it while working on THE FOUNTAINHEAD—it has the same theme, spirit and intention, although in quite a different form. 

If you should care to review it for the book section of the New York Times, it would make me very happy. I have asked the publishers not to send out any review copies to any publication, but only to individual persons in the literary field whose judgment and integrity we can respect. If you find that you care to do it, please ask the book editor of the Times to let you write the review. You are the only one on the Times to whom we are sending a copy of ANTHEM. 

If you do not wish to write a review, I would still like very much to know your opinion of this book, and if you will write to me about it, I will not use it for publication (whether it is good or bad), unless you permit me to. 

If you knew how profoundly I despise the literary opinion of today, you would accept this as the only tribute I can pay to you. 

Gratefully, still and always, 

Ayn Rand

Miss Lorine Pruette
1904 Kirby Avenue
Chattanooga, Tennessee

[Page 2]
P.S.

The publication date of ANTHEM will be about October 21st. I will let you know the exact date as soon as it is set, if you care to do the review.