The Early Ayn Rand - A Selection from Her Unpublished Fiction

The Early Ayn Rand: A Selection from Her Unpublished Fiction is an anthology of unpublished early fiction written by Ayn Rand, published in 1984, two years after her death. The selections include short stories, plays, and excerpts of material cut from her novels We the Living and The Fountainhead. The collection was compiled and edited by the heir of Rand's estate, Leonard Peikoff. Although they were never meant to be published, the collection shows Rand's development as a writer before she became famous.

A revised and expanded edition was published in 2005. It adds the unpublished short story "The Night King" and "The Simplest Thing in the World" (previously published in The Objectivist and in Rand's book The Romantic Manifesto).

The play Think Twice is a murder mystery. Peikoff writes that in conversation about this play, Rand told him "She could not ... ever write a series of mysteries, because everyone would know who the murderers were."

This book is volume two of the "Ayn Rand Library" series edited by Peikoff. In the introduction, Peikoff writes he "decided to publish this material because I believe that admirers of Miss Rand will be interested to learn by what steps she developed her literary abilities. They can now see the steps themselves."