To Edward T. Chase [Letter 557]

[On The Objectivist letterhead.]

June 16, 1970

Mr. Edward T. Chase
The New American Library, Inc.
1301 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10019

Dear Ned:

Thank you for your letter of June 4. Please excuse my delay: the pressure of a deadline on an article I was writing made it impossible for me to gather all the materials we discussed, but I have done so now.

The matter most important to me personally, is the new cover for the reissue of Atlas Shrugged. I would like for once, after all these years, to see that novel in a cover I can really like. So I am sending this material directly to you, in order not to delay it.

The Random House ad, which I enclose, will give you the general idea, but it is not well executed. The black circle does not look like a globe, and it is too big. My idea for the cover is to have the face featured and the broken globe (designed as a globe, with the continents, etc.) in the distance, smaller (or no larger) than the face—as if Galt had shrugged and the world broke, rolling away into space. I suggest that the picture be done in color, as a picture (i.e., as a separate rectangle with lines of demarcation from the rest of the cover) and that it be the full size of the cover, except for the lettering of the text.

I am enclosing two photographs of that portrait (one is a color transparency). The portrait part has to be kept as is, but the background has to be redrawn by your artist. These are my only photographs of the portrait, so please return them to me as soon as the Art Department has made copies. (It’s a portrait of my husband. I neither hide nor publicize this fact.)

I am sending a list of the articles for my proposed new book (“The New Left: the Anti-Industrial Revolution”), as well as Peter Ritner’s letter, to Perry Knowlton who will send them on to you.

With my best regards—and best hope for the future,

Sincerely,

Ayn Rand

AR/ek
Encl.