[Rarebooks] Karl Marx - Das Kapital - New York

[Pia Oliver]

Karl Marx. Kapital. Kritika Poleticeskoj Ekonomii. Perevod c 
Njemeckago. Tom Pervyj. Kniga I. Process proizvodsta kapitala [Das 
Kapital].
  Quarto, original black cloth, paper label on spine. Cloth somewhat 
faded, label almost chipped off, owner's stamp on front pastedown, 
else a fine copy.

See images at <http://www.RandallHouseRareBooks.com/indbooks/kapital.html>

The Jewalenko pirated New York edition (in 1967 Politizdat put out a 
monograph "Kniga ..." which contains a description of a copy of the 
New York reprint obtained by a one time member of the "Foundation of 
the Free Russian Press" in New York, from Jewalenko [Evalenko], and 
is now in the Library of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Russia. 
One of the differences between the New York pirated editon and the 
original Poliakov edition is in line three from the bottom on the 
page of Contents.

Karl Marx (1818 - 1883) wrote and saw published during his lifetime 
only this the first volume of his magnum opus. After his death 
Friedrich Engels edited his notes and manuscript, and volume II 
published by Engel in 1885 discusses the process of circulating 
capital. Volume III (1895) talks about the process of capitalist 
production as a whole. The fourth volume Marx had envisioned, only 
exists as a book edited from his notes by Karl Kautsky, titled 
Theories of Surplus Value.
Marx himself describes Das Kapital as a continuation of his earlier 
work Zur Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie (Criticism of the Political 
Economy) (1859) in modest terms. However, 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 Athaeneum reviewer of the 
first English translation (1887) wrote later "...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 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 
preoccupations 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.
By an odd quirk of history the first foreign translation of Das 
Kapital to appear was the Russian, early in April 1872. The censor, 
Skuratov wrote when giving his impromatur, "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 [of 1872-75] 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.

[Printing and the Mind of Man 359]

$3,000.00							ID# 9262
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