In the Rand Archives, Part 2: The edited letters and diaries

Jennifer Burns is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Virginia.

In the Rand Archives, Part 2: The edited letters and diaries

Sunday, 13 September 2009 07:55

Perhaps no part of Rand’s legacy is more controversial today than the editing of her letters and diaries. When the Estate of Ayn Rand released two huge volumes of her letters and diaries in 1995 and 1997, Rand fans were thrilled. It didn’t take long, however, for suspicions to surface. Sifting through earlier published excerpts of Rand’s journals, NYU scholar Chris Sciabarra discovered that the journals had been edited. As I write in my forthcoming book, “After several years working in Rand’s personal papers I can confirm Sciabarra’s discovery: the published versions of Rand’s letters and diaries have been significantly edited in ways that drastically reduce their utility as historical sources.”

When I arrived at the Ayn Rand Archive, I kept quiet about all of this. I was a little bit paranoid, in fact, during my early time at the Archive. I had read all the stories about Rand infighting, the schisms, purges, and breaks. I knew it would take me years to finish my dissertation, and then write a book, and I didn’t want to jeopardize my access to the archive.

Then one day, I mentioned the books in passing, and an archivist rolled his eyes at me.

“Those were done years ago,” he said. I sensed an opening. “Yes, I noticed some discrepancies…” I began tentatively. The floodgates sprang wide. The staff at the archive knew all about the editing – and they heartily disapproved. The staff at the Ayn Rand Archives is professionally trained and serious about their work; like all archivists and librarians, they treasure knowledge for its own sake and scrupulously try to preserve the historical record.

I felt a great weight lifting from my shoulders. No longer would I have to pretend there was nothing problematic about the published letters and journals. I began a serious concordance project, doing line by line comparisons of the published text and the originals. It was tedious, eye straining work. The archivists helped me locate the right files, which had been scattered into many folders.

When two Objectivist scholars, funded by the Ayn Rand Institute, arrived at the archive, I was again circumspect. Then I heard loud sighs of disgust arising from a nearby scholar. He, too, was comparing the different versions, and he, too, was outraged.

Next installment: The plot thickens... publishing

Comments (5)

|2009-09-25 08:35:04 Noah Kristula-Green - Very interesting and exciting!

As someone who read Ayn Rand in high school before repudiating and turning away from all that, I must say I am very excited to read more!

Part of what turned me away from Objectivism was the peculiar nature of the ARI's operations, a mix of coming off as too squeaky clean in their presentation of historical information and the very intentional effort to present a unified front.

It would be very interesting to see what happens next in your story! Will the ARI face its own history and move to correct the archives, or try and keep the "official" version the public version?

Thank you for doing this!

|2009-09-27 05:24:22 Richard Lawrence - Wikipedia

I thought you might want to know that both this post and your book have been quoted in the Wikipedia article about Journals of Ayn Rand, regarding the criticisms of how that book was edited.

|2009-09-27 16:54:36 Jennifer Burns - Wikipedia

I had missed this, thanks for letting me know!

|2009-10-07 06:52:58 Gordon Burkowski - Cocordance

I was intrigued by the fact that you "began a serious concordance project, doing line by line comparisons of the published text and the originals." Somewhere down the road, I suspect that that concordance is going to have a very big impact - and thanks go to you for having done this work. Just a few questions:

1) Will this concordance be available in future to other scholars?

2) Do you know whether similar alterations were made to the texts in The Early Ayn Rand?

3) Did you check out the texts presented by James Valliant in his book on the Brandens? Are the texts accurate or do they suffer from the same issues as the published selections from the Journals?

|2009-10-20 15:25:50 Anonymous

I do have a concordance, but since this material is unpublished, I do not have the right to distribute it; nor is it in an easily digestible format at present. I noted in my book the most important changes given my subject and emphasis; other changes may appear of greater consequence depending on your approach to Rand. Scholars interested in specific aspects of this material may write to me (though I cannot promise a swift response). The development and publication of a clear concordance would be a wonderful project for the archive to support.

I don’t know about The Early Ayn Rand, but since Rand herself showed some of these stories to her students in later years, and used them as the basis for her fiction writing classes, it is possible she herself made changes in the stories (as she did with We The Living).

Since my project was primarily intellectual, not biographical in nature, I did not examine in great detail the material James Valliant relies upon. What I saw in the arch...