Independently Published

Anthem Independently Published

Anthem is Ayn Rand's classic tale of a dystopian future of the great "We"-a world that deprives individuals of a name or independence-that anticipates her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.


Anthem is a dystopian fiction novella by Ayn Rand, written in 1937 and first published in 1938 in the United Kingdom. The story takes place at an unspecified future date when mankind has entered another Dark Age. Equality 7-2521 is a young man who yearns to understand "the Science of Things", but he lives in a bleak, dystopian future where independent thought is a crime and where science and technology have regressed to primitive levels.

All expressions of individualism have been suppressed in his world: Personal possessions are nonexistent, individual preferences are condemned as sinful, and romantic love is forbidden. Obedience to the collective is so deeply ingrained that the very word "I" has been erased. In pursuit of his quest for knowledge, Equality 7-2521 struggles to answer the questions that burn within him.