Anthem is set in a dystopian future Dark Age in which totalitarianism has extinguished individuality and imposed a strict order based on technology and collectivism. The main character is Equality 7-252, who is raised in a collective home and dreams of becoming a Scholar, since he was born with a “curse” that enables him to learn quickly and ask probing questions. His dream conflicts with the Life Mandate assigned by the Council of Vocations as a Street Sweeper. He discovers a tunnel in a work area containing metal tracks, a remnant from the Unmentionable Times. He goes exploring and soon steals some paper and begins a journal.  He meets a Peasant girl, Liberty 5-3000, and falls for her, dubbing her “The Golden One”. Soon he rediscovers electricity and excitedly presents it to the World Council of Scholars, who are horrified by the threat to their Department of Candles and seek to destroy the invention and punish the inventor. Equality grabs the invention and escapes to the Uncharted Forest. The Golden One joins him a day later. They settle in a house in the mountains and spend their time reading books discovered in the library. They rediscover the word “I”, grapple with finding words to express love, rename themselves Prometheus and Gaea, and make plans for a future in which individuality is regained.

Anthem was written while Rand was working on The Fountainhead and was published in England in 1938. It was revised and re-released in 1946 after the spectacular success of The Fountainhead and has since sold more than 3.5 million copies.

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