David Kelley, Ph.D., founder of The Atlas Society, writes in his preface: "Walter [Donway] refers often to [Ayn] Rand's Romantic Manifesto, with illuminating observations drawn from his deep understanding of her Objectivist philosophy. But he goes far beyond Rand's book in his detailed treatment of the Romantic movement. . . . From the perspective of the mid-Twentieth Century, when the schools of "Naturalism," then "Realism," had swept "serious" literature, Ayn Rand could look back on Romanticism and discern—as even Hugo did not in full—what truly constituted its spirit and power. What was essential and what accidental, what consistent with its vital spirit and what contradictory to it. . . . She had identified what gives Romanticism its incomparable ability to excite the imagination, lift the spirit, and inspire intense hero-worship.