The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism.

RAND, Ayn.

Item Number: 108939

New York: The New American Library, 1964.

First edition of this collection of essays that sets forth the moral principles of Objectivism, Ayn Rand’s, groundbreaking philosophy. Octavo, original half cloth. Boldly signed by Ayn Rand on the half-title page. Near fine in a very good dust jacket. With additional articles by Nathaniel Branden. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. One of the most uncommon Rand books to encounter signed.

Since their initial publication, Rand's fictional works—Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged—have had a major impact on the intellectual scene. The underlying theme of her famous novels is her philosophy, a new morality—the ethics of rational self-interest—that offers a robust challenge to altruist-collectivist thought. Known as Objectivism, her divisive philosophy holds human life—the life proper to a rational being—as the standard of moral values and regards altruism as incompatible with man's nature. In this series of essays, Rand asks why man needs morality in the first place, and arrives at an answer that redefines a new code of ethics based on the virtue of selfishness.