Rand, Ayn.

8vo (215 x 145 mm). Half title partially detached. Publisher's green cloth; spine lightly sunned, some light wear to spine label, foot of spine rubbed with minor loss to cloth, small hole in cloth at spine. 

Howard Gall (bookplate)

First edition, inscribed by Rand to her attorney, John Gall, nearly two months prior to the official publication date "To John C. Gall — | —my complete case for free enterprise — and to the glory of the steel industry — | Ayn Rand | 8/22/57".  Following on the success of The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged was Rand's magnum opus, containing her most fully developed statement of her philosophy of Objectivism. Though she apparently denied there being any link in an interview, the similarity between the name of Rand's mysterious protagonist, John Galt, and her attorney, John Gall, seems like more than coincidence.