Attending a reception earlier this month to formally open an exhibit at Chapman University, “Celebrating the Drama and Philosophy of Ayn Rand”, I had the pleasure of being given an extensive and informative tour by Ayn Rand Archives curator Jeff Britting and was surprised to find new and interesting material about works with which I’m extremely familiar. Among the items in the manuscript and photograph exhibit are first-edition copies of Rand’s 75th anniversary edition of We the Living, as well as some manuscript pages and photographs. We the Living, Rand’s first novel, is an excellent and haunting and relevant work of literature (read my 2009 take on We the Living here and my movie review here). Tucked inside an Orange County, California, library, “Celebrating the Drama and Philosophy of Ayn Rand” displays newspaper coverage, including book reviews, book cover designs, artwork, correspondence – with H.L. Mencken, for example – and more. The exhibit, which runs through June 29, also contains material about the publishing of Rand’s insightful collection of excerpted fiction writings and non-fiction essay For the New Intellectual. As philosophy professor Robert Mayhew, whose Essays on We the Living was recently released in its second edition with newly added essays, told me at the end of this interview, We the Living is the closest we have to seeing the 20th century’s greatest writer in her youth.
