Rainbow Quiz - Identify the personality - Week 3

Here is the next Weekly Sunday (delivered 2 days late) "Rainbow" Quiz , where I would be giving 7 clues (Hence the name Rainbow) about a personality. Try to discover the person in the least number of clues . You can either leave the answer as a comment / email me . Feedback/ suggestions welcome. Googling is not preferred but then its just for fun and so go ahead if you need to.

clue # 1 : Her first childhood hero was Cyrus Paltons, an Indian army officer in a Kipling-style story by Maurice Champagne, called "The Mysterious Valley".

clue # 2 : Her first literary success came with the sale of her screenplay Red Pawn to Universal Studios.

clue # 3 : Most of her novels, when they were first published, "received almost unanimously terrible reviews". Many of these became bestsellers due largely to word of mouth.

clue # 4 : Her magnum opus, ----- --------, was published in 1957 and went on to become an international bestseller.It is frequently claimed (Though not verified) as the second most influential book in America after the Bible.

clue # 5 : She claimed that her greatest philosophical influence was Aristotle,though her work borders very close to the Nietzschean ideas.

clue # 6 : A fierce New Yorker, she wrote, "I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline, the sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body."

clue # 7 : Her belief: Rational selfishness (Objectivism) is a virtue; altruism (self-sacrifice), a vice.

P.S : Need I say more ? An author whose works have had a deep influence on the 20th century philosophical movement.