Rand acknowledged Aristotle as her greatest influence[100] and remarked that in the history of philosophy she could only recommend three A's —Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand.[101] She also found early inspiration in Friedrich Nietzsche,[102] and scholars have found indications of his influence in early notes from Rand's journals,[103] in passages from the first edition of We the Living (which Rand later revised),[104] and in her overall writing style.[105] However, by the time she wrote The Fountainhead, Rand had turned against Nietzsche's ideas,[106] and the extent of his influence on her even during her early years is disputed.[107]
In the end De Mille rejected Rand's script, and the actual film followed Murphy's original idea. However, David Harriman, who edited Rand's plot outline for the film which was published in the Journals of Ayn Rand, pointed out the obvious similarity with plot elements which Rand would later use in The Fountainhead .[1]
The Fountainhead has continued to have strong sales throughout the last century into the current one, and has been referenced in a variety of popular entertainments, including movies, television series and other novels.[46] Despite its popularity, it has received relatively little ongoing critical attention,[47][48] although analyses of both the literary and philosophical aspects of the novel by a dozen academics and scholars have been collected in Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (2006), edited by Professor Robert Mayhew.[49] Assessing the novel's legacy, philosopher Douglas Den Uyl described The Fountainhead as relatively neglected compared to her later novel, Atlas Shrugged, and said, our problem is to find those topics that arise clearly with The Fountainhead and yet do not force us to read it simply through the eyes of Atlas Shrugged. [47]
When it was first published in 1943, The Fountainhead--containing Ayn Randrrs"s daringly original literary vision with the seeds of her groundbreaking philosophy, Objectivism mdash;won immediate worldwide acclaim. This instant classic is the story of an intransigent young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him. This centennial edition of The Fountainhead, celebrating the controversial and eduring legacy of its author, features an afterword by Randars"s literary executor, Leonard Peikoff, offering some of Ayn Randors"s personal notes on the development of her masterwork. eld"A writer of great power. She has a subtle and ingenious mind and the capacity of writing brilliantly, beautifully, bitterly.erd"--The New York Times
