Free Classic
Novels by
Ayn Rand
Enrich your classroom with free copies of Ayn Rand’s classic, thought-provoking literature
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2002
Year Founded
NOVEL
Anthem
105 Pages | Available in Paperback and eBook | 8th-10th Grade | 2-4 Weeks
About the Book
- Anthem is Ayn Rand’s “hymn to man’s ego.” It is the story of one man’s rebellion against a totalitarian, collectivist society. Equality 7-2521 is a young man who yearns to understand “the Science of Things.” But he lives in a bleak, dystopian future where independent thought is a crime and where science and technology have regressed to primitive levels.
- All expressions of individualism have been suppressed in the world of Anthem; personal possessions are nonexistent, individual preferences are condemned as sinful and romantic love is forbidden. Obedience to the collective is so deeply ingrained that the very word “I” has been erased from the language.
- In pursuit of his quest for knowledge, Equality 7-2521 struggles to answer the questions that burn within him — questions that ultimately lead him to uncover the mystery behind his society’s downfall and to find the key to a future of freedom and progress.
- Anthem anticipates the theme of Rand’s first best seller, The Fountainhead, which she stated as “individualism versus collectivism, not in politics, but in man’s soul.”
NOVEL
We the Living
432 Pages | Available in Paperback | 9th-11th Grade | 4-6 Weeks
About the Book
- The setting is Soviet Russia, early 1920s. Kira Argounova, a university engineering student who wants a career building bridges, falls in love with Leo Kovalensky, son of a czarist hero. Both Kira and Leo yearn to shape their own future — but they are trapped in a communist state that claims the right to sacrifice individual lives for the sake of the collective.
- When Kira is kicked out of the university as an undesirable and Leo’s past makes him unemployable, life becomes a grim struggle for physical survival. Leo contracts tuberculosis but can’t get admitted to a state sanitarium, despite Kira’s best efforts. Desperate, she seeks help from Andrei Taganov, an ardent young communist whose love for Kira helps awaken him to the meaning of genuine personal values, not to be surrendered for others’ sake.
- Once these two men are destroyed — Andrei by his disillusionment with communism, and Leo by his inability to go on fighting — Kira tries to flee, but will she find it possible to defy the state’s power?
NOVEL
The Fountainhead
694 Pages | Available in Paperback | 9th-12th Grade | 4-8 Weeks
About the Book
- What motivates a creative thinker? Is it a selfless desire to benefit mankind? A hunger for fame, fortune, and accolades? The need to prove superiority? Or is it a self-sufficient drive to pursue a creative vision, independent of others’ needs or opinions?
- Ayn Rand addresses these questions through her portrayal of Howard Roark, an innovative architect who, as she puts it, “struggles for the integrity of his creative work against every form of social opposition.”
- Initially rejected by twelve publishers as “too intellectual,” The Fountainhead became a best seller within two years purely through word of mouth, and earned Rand enduring commercial and artistic success.
- The novel was also a personal landmark for Rand. In Howard Roark, she presented for the first time the uniquely Ayn Rand hero, whose depiction was the chief goal of her writing: the ideal man, man as “he could be and ought to be.”
NOVEL