Manuscript Leaf from First Draft of Atlas Shrugged to Auction

A single page from Ayn Rand’s handwritten first draft of her final novel Atlas Shrugged comes to auction at Doyle on December 6 in its Rare Books, Autographs & Maps auction.

Probably dating to 1951, the 16 lines are written in fountain-pen ink by Rand with several corrections also in her hand. The lot has an estimate of $30,000 - $50,000 and includes a reproduction of the portrait of Rand that features on the dust jacket of the book.

The page itself comes from an important scene in during an exchange between Dagny Taggart and Lillian Rearden after she learns of Dagny’s affair with her husband Hank Rearden. The corrected text reads:

"went 'It was I,' said Lillian, ‘who took Rearden Metal away from him.’ It sounded almost like a plea. It was not within the power of Dagney’s consciousness ever to know what it was that Lillian had hoped to find in her face; she knew only that she had not found it, when she heard the sudden sharpness of Lillian’s voice: ‘Have you understood me?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then no further explanations are necessary; only the reminder that all the factual evidence—hotel registers, jewelry bills and stuff”

The leaf is one of 29 pages of manuscript from the first draft kept by Rand's assistant Barbara Branden. Most of the rest was destroyed.

An inscribed first edition, first issue copy of Atlas Shrugged will also be going under the hammer at the same auctio, signed on the half-title to the guide for her speaking engagement at West Point: "To Lieutenant Colonel Herman V. Frey—my 'commanding officer' on the occasion of the most thrilling engagement of my speaking career—Thank You—Ayn Rand 5/7/74." The speech was to the graduating class of the United States Military Academy at West Point (estimate: $4,000 - $6,000).

Other highlights include:

• first editions of Ernest Hemingway's 1923 Three Stories & Ten Poems (which previously belonged to poets Sidney Keynes and Powys Mathers, estimate: $20,000 - $30,000), In Our Time (estimate: $15,000 - $25,000), and Spanish matador Antonio Ordóñez's 'Suit of Lights' and sword owned by Ernest Hemingway - included in the lot is Hemingway's lucky chestnut (estmate: $10,000 - $20,000)
• a large archive of letters, notes, photographs and ephemera sent from Marlene Dietrich to her choreographer Sonia Shaw Hitchcock, circa 1959-1985 (estimate: $2,000 - $3,000)
• a signed manuscript score card from chess world champion Bobby Fischer which includes the inscription "resigned, Fisher" for his match against Dragoljub Minic during a World Championship circa 1970 (estimate: $1,500 - $2,500)