Marx, Karl | The first U.S. printing of Marx’s Capital in English, issued without authorization

Marx, Karl

Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production. New York: The Humboldt Publishing Co., [circa 1891]

8vo (229 x 143 mm). Title-page extended with some light spotting, chipped at lower inner edge, intermittent spotting, including to p. xvii, margin of p. 221 restored. Publisher’s red cloth, covers ruled with Humboldt Library emblem stamped in black on upper board and in blind on lower board, spine gilt-lettered with black rules; rear endleaf reinforced at hinge, spine toned, covers somewhat soiled with some restoration, mainly to edges.

An early and rare issue of the first English-language edition printed in the United States of Das Kapital—an apparent assemblage of Humboldt’s original four-part issue in wraps, in the original publisher's cloth.

One of the most important and influential works of modern times, Marx’s Capital is a foundational critique of private property, capitalist production, and the social structures it engenders. The Humboldt Publishing Company, a small left-wing publisher, first issued the text in four parts between September and October 1890 in the Humboldt Library of Science. The following year, they bound the four installments together and released a single volume (as here) without the permission of Marx’s family, Friedrich Engels, or the European publishers.

The text comprises Moore and Aveling’s translation of the first volume of Das Kapital, Marx’s prefaces to the first and second German editions, and Engels’s preface to the first English edition. This collected edition is bound without the advertisements present in the original parts.

As is common, the title page has been tipped or extended onto a stub, suggesting it was added during the binding process as part of Humboldt’s effort to reissue leftover sheets from the serialized edition.

REFERENCES:

Cf. PMM 359 (first edition); Martinek, Socialism and Print Culture in America, 1897–1920