Her fiction received mixed reviews from literary critics, with reviews becoming more negative for her later work.

Rand's books have sold over 37 million copies. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, except for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and classical liberals. Although Rand opposed libertarianism, which she viewed as anarchism, she is often associated with the modern libertarian movement in the United States. Instead, she supported laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including private property rights. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed collectivism, statism, and anarchism. She supported rational and ethical egoism as opposed to altruism. Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge she rejected faith and religion.

Afterward, until her death in 1982, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays. In 1957, Rand published her best-selling work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful and two Broadway plays, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead. Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum February 2, 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand ( / aɪ n/), was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand