Milestones of Science Books

MARX, Karl.

Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Oekonomie. Vol. 1: Der Produktionsprocess des Kapitals.

Hamburg: Verlag Otto Meissner, 1867.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #003926

8vo (212 x 132 mm). xii, 784 pp. Contemporary German half cloth over marbled boards, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, marbled edges (a few minor repairs to spine ends and paper over boards). Light even age toning internally, very minor occasional spotting, slight dust marking at upper margin from previously inserted bookmarks and a few light creases and dog-ears in places. Provenance: annotated throughout in light pencil by a learned reader in shorthand German; from a German aristocratic collection. A very good, clean copy. ----

FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE MODERN ERA. Only this first volume was published in Marx's lifetime; his friend and supporter Friedrich Engels edited and published volume II in 1885 and volume III in 1894. "The history of the twentieth century is Marx's legacy. Stalin, Mao, Che, Castro -- the icons and monsters of the modern age have all presented themselves as his heirs. Whether he would recognize them as such is quite another matter... Within one hundred years of his death half the world's population was ruled by governments that professed Marxism to be their guiding faith. His ideas have transformed the study of economics, history, geography, sociology and literature" (Wheen). Marx's great polemic was the summation of his quarter of a century of economic studies, mostly at the British Museum. "Marx himself modestly described Das Kapital as a continuation of his Zur Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie, 1859. It was in fact the summation of his quarter of a century's economic studies, mostly in the Reading Room of the British Museum. The Athenaeum reviewer of the first English translation (1887) later wrote: 'Under the guise of a critical analysis of capital, Karl Marx's work is principally a polemic against capitalists and the capitalist mode of production, and it is this polemical tone which is its chief charm'. The historical-polemical passages, with their formidable documentation from British official sources, have remained memorable; and, as Marx (a chronic furunculosis victim) wrote to Engels while the volume was still in the press, 'I hope the bourgeoisie will remember my carbuncles all the rest of their lives'. Carbuncles, financial embarrassment and political pre-occupations of many kinds hampered Marx's work on Das Kapital, which he would never have completed but for the material and moral support of Engels. At 2 a.m. on 16 August 1867, when he had just corrected the final proofs, Marx wrote to 'Dear Fred' that the first volume was finished 'thanks to you alone. Without your self-sacrifice for me I could never possibly have done the enormous work... The [Pound] 15 received with best thanks'. By an odd quirk of history the first foreign translation of Das Kapital to appear was the Russian, which Petersburgers found in their bookshops early in April 1872. Giving his imprimatur, the censor, one Skuratov, had written 'few people in Russia will read it, and still fewer will understand it'. He was wrong: the edition of three thousand sold out quickly; and in 1880 Marx was writing to his friend F. A. Sorge that 'our success is still greater in Russia, where Kapital is read and appreciated more than anywhere else'. The first French translation, issued in 10-centime parts in 1872-5, was substantially revised by Marx himself; and these revisions were taken into account when at length the first English translation, by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, appeared in London, in 1887, four years after Marx's death, under the editorship of Engels. Aveling was the husband of Marx's youngest daughter, Eleanor, and Moore an old friend, an unwilling businessman (like Engels), who later turned to the law and ended as a magistrate in Nigeria" (PMM).
References: PMM, Printing and the Mind of Man, 359; Rubel 633, 635-636; Wheen, Karl Marx, p.1. - Visit our website to see more images!

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