The works

1. 1935
   Night of January 16th

   A courtroom drama about the death of a financier, in which members of the audience are chosen as the jury and the play has two endings depending on their verdict. Rand used it to set a confident, independent defendant against conventional respectability.

   Play
2. 1936
   We the Living

   Set in Petrograd after the Russian Revolution, it follows Kira Argounova, a young woman who wants to be an engineer, and the two men she loves, Leo Kovalensky and the Communist Andrei Taganov. It is Rand's portrait of what a totalitarian state does to the individuals inside it.

   Novel. Macmillan
3. 1938
   Anthem

   A short dystopia set in a future collectivist society where the word "I" has been lost. The narrator, Equality 7-2521, rediscovers electric light and, with it, his own individuality.

   Novella. Cassell (UK)
4. 1943
   The Fountainhead

   The story of Howard Roark, a modernist architect who refuses to compromise his designs, set against Peter Keating, who builds a career on others' approval. Its theme, in Rand's description, is individualism versus collectivism within a man's soul.

   Novel. Bobbs-Merrill
5. 1949
   The Fountainhead (film)

   The film adaptation of the novel, for which Rand wrote the screenplay herself.

   Film
6. 1957
   Atlas Shrugged

   In a United States sliding into collectivism, the country's most productive people begin to disappear. Railroad executive Dagny Taggart and industrialist Hank Rearden fight to keep their companies running, until they learn that the disappearances are a strike led by John Galt.

   Novel. Random House
7. 1961
   For the New Intellectual

   The title essay surveys the history of ideas through two archetypes Rand calls Attila (rule by force) and the Witch Doctor (rule by faith), and argues for a new intellectual guided by reason.

   Nonfiction
8. 1964
   The Virtue of Selfishness

   Rand's case for an ethics of rational self-interest, including "The Objectivist Ethics", "Man's Rights" and "The Nature of Government". The deliberately provocative title is explained in the introduction.

   Nonfiction
9. 1966
   Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

   A moral defence of laissez-faire capitalism as the only system consistent with individual rights, with essays on antitrust, monopolies, the gold standard and the history of business.

   Nonfiction
10. 1969
    The Romantic Manifesto

    Rand's philosophy of art: art as a selective re-creation of reality according to the artist's values, the idea of a "sense of life", and her defence of Romanticism in literature.

    Nonfiction
11. 1971
    The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

    Essays on the student movements and environmentalism of the late 1960s, which Rand read as a revolt against reason and industrial civilisation.

    Nonfiction
12. 1979
    Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology

    Rand's theory of concepts: how the mind forms concepts from perceptions by retaining the characteristics things share and omitting their particular measurements.

    Nonfiction
13. 1982
    Philosophy: Who Needs It

    Essays arguing that everyone holds a philosophy, chosen or not, opening with the title talk Rand gave to the graduating class of the US Military Academy at West Point in 1974.

    Nonfiction
14. 1984
    The Early Ayn Rand

    Rand's early short stories and plays, including material written in her first years in America.

    Collection, posthumous

Kinds covered: Novel, Novella, Play, Nonfiction, Collection, Film. Later posthumous collections of letters, journals and lectures are not listed individually.