Sunday, May 10, 2015

Some Early Editions of Marx’s Capital Online

Volume 1 of Karl Marx’s Capital was published in German in 1867, and only volume 1 of Capital was published in Marx’s lifetime. Volume 1 and 2 were edited and published by Engels. Furthermore, no English translation appeared of volume 1 in Marx’s lifetime.

Marx did, however, publish a second German edition of volume 1 in 1872–1873 and supervised a French translation in 1875, and Engels edited a third German edition in 1883 and then a fourth German edition published in 1890.

The first English translation of volume 1 of Capital appeared in 1887 supervised by Engels.

We can list these editions as follows:
(1) volume 1 of Capital in German published in a first edition of 1867.

(2) volume 1 of Capital in German published in a second edition of 1872–1873 with additions and changes by Marx.

(3) volume 1 of Capital in a French translation in 1875, with a number of changes to and corrections of the first German edition by Marx.

(4) volume 1 of Capital in a third German edition with corrections and notes from the manuscripts of Marx and from the French translation edited and published by Engels in 1883.

(5) the first English translation of volume 1 of Capital in 1887 after Marx’s death in this edition:
Marx, Karl. 1887. Capital. A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production. Volume I (in 2 volumes; trans. from 3rd German edn. by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling). Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., London.
This edition is somewhat confusing in that, although it was a English translation only of volume 1, it was itself published in 2 volumes.

(6) volume 1 of Capital in a fourth German edition published in 1890 edited by Engels.

(7) A revised English translation of volume 1 of Capital by Ernest Untermann in 1906:
Marx, Karl. 1906. Capital. A Critique of Political Economy (vol. 1; rev. trans. by Ernest Untermann from 4th German edn.). The Modern Library, New York.
Some of these are available online.

The first German edition seems to be here:
Marx, Karl. 1867. Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Oekonomie (1st edn.). O. Meissner, Hamburg; L. W. Schmidt, New York.
https://archive.org/details/daskapitalkritik67marx
There seems to be a reprint of the first part (that is, vol. 1) of the 1887 English edition of volume 1 of Capital but published in 1889 here:
Marx, Karl. 1889. Capital. A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production. Volume I (trans. from 3rd German edn. by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling; ed. Friedrich Engels). Appleton & Co., New York, and S. Sonnenschein & Co., London.
https://archive.org/details/capitalcriticala00marx
The second part (that is, vol. 2) of the 1887 English edition translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling seems to be available here:
Marx, Karl. 1887. Capital. A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production. Volume I (vol. 2; trans. from 3rd German edn. by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling; ed. Friedrich Engels). Appleton & Co., New York, and S. Sonnenschein & Co., London.
https://archive.org/details/capitalcriticala02marxrich
The 1906 revised English translation of volume 1 of Capital by Ernest Untermann is available here:
Marx, Karl. 1906. Capital. A Critique of Political Economy (vol. 1; rev. trans. by Ernest Untermann from 4th German edn.). The Modern Library, New York.
https://archive.org/details/capitalcritiqueo01marx

4 comments:

  1. Dear LK
    Any reader fortunate enough, like me, to be able to read German, can find the whole Marx Engels Werke (MEW), i.e. the complete edition of all the writings of Marx and Engels, in pdf form, freely downloadable, here: http://marx-wirklich-studieren.net/marx-engels-werke-als-pdf-zum-download/

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  2. The MEW is not even close to being the "complete edition of all the writings of Marx and Engels".

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  3. I am a student and that post is very useful for me.

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  4. The Modern Library edition of Vol. I did not appear until 1936, after the firm purchased the publishing plates from Charles H. Kerr & Company. Kerr issued the volume in 1906. The error is often made since the copyright page, reading Kerr was reproduced as part of the print block.

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