The God of the Machine.

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons,, 1943. A document that could literally save the world" (Ayn Rand) First edition, first printing, of the author's best-known work, a seminal text of American libertarianism. A leading Canadian-American journalist and esteemed literary critic, Paterson (1886-1961) is credited as one of the "three furies" of the American libertarian movement alongside Ayn Rand and Rose Wilder Lane (William F. Buckley Jr. quoted by Burns, p. 746). In a lengthy and strongly-worded letter to Earle H. Balch, an editor at G. P. Putnam's Sons, Rand stressed the importance of Paterson's book and advised in great detail the best methods of publicizing its release, arguing that "The God of the Machine is a document that could literally save the world - if enough people knew of it and read it. [It] does for capitalism what the Bible did for Christianity - and, forgive the comparison, what Das Kapital did for Communism or Mein Kampf for Nazism. It takes a book to save or destroy the world" (28 November 1943). The God of the Machine was published in the same year as Rand's The Fountainhead. Laid into this copy are clippings of five newspaper columns titled "Libertarian" by the American lawyer and politician Roger Lea MacBride (1929-1995). MacBride was a close family friend of Rose Wilder Lane; he described himself as her adopted grandson and Lane called him her "political disciple". He was the executor of and sole heir to her estate. Pasted onto the rear pastedown is an article from the Wall Street Journal dated in manuscript 14 May 1943. Written by Thomas F. Woodlock, it is headed "Thinking it Over", and reviews The God of the Machine, which he describes as "as uncompromising an attack on the whole notion of 'planned economic collectivism' as anyone could wish... She deals in no euphemisms, no qualifications, no compromise, no concessions, gives no quarter and asks none". Octavo. Original orange cloth, spine lettered and blocked in blue, top edge blue, fore edge untrimmed. With dust jacket, some of which supplied in expert facsimile. Later ownership signature on front free endpaper dated 1961, earlier date "5/18/43" pencilled below, a few pieces of ephemera laid in, including newspaper clippings (with resulting offset) and typed note between pp. 226-7 about public spending in politics, further newspaper clipping adhered to rear pastedown with facing pencil commentary (see main note). Spine ends and corners lightly rubbed, ends bumped with a few tiny nicks at foot, cloth bright and unmarked; contents similarly bright, with scattered neat pencil annotations and marginal marks. Jacket price-clipped, spine panel sunned, professionally restored with loss to extremities and to front panel (including part of author's name and quotation in lower margin) supplied in facsimile. A very good copy in a carefully preserved example of the striking jacket. Michael S. Berliner, ed., Letters of Ayn Rand, 1997; Jennifer Burns, "The Three 'Furies' of Libertarianism: Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand", Journal of American History, vol. 102, issue 3, Dec. 2015, pp. 746-74.