“MARX WAS ABOVE ALL A REVOLUTIONARY”: SCARCE ASSOCIATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF MARX’S MAGNUM OPUS, DAS KAPITAL, SIGNED BY UNITED STATES CONGRESSMAN ABRAM PIATT ANDREW, JR.

MARX, Karl. Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production. London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1887. Two volumes. Octavo, original blind-and gilt-stamped burgundy cloth, uncut and partially unopened. Housed in a custom clamshell box.

First edition in English, association copy, of the first part of Marx’s landmark Das Kapital, the only part published in his lifetime, containing substantial revisions made by Marx for the first French translation, edited by Engels and translated from the third German edition, from the library of Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr., signed by him in both volumes. Andrew served as director of the Mint and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury before he was elected to Congress, representing the state of Massachusetts from 1921 until his death in 1936.

Expelled from Paris and Brussells, and from Cologne in 1849, Karl Marx moved to London where, with the aid of Frederick Engels, he endured hunger and family tragedies, spending for decades in the British Museum to research his seminal work on capitalism. Marx “modestly described Das Kapital as a continuation of his Zur Kritik des Politischen Oekonomie, 1859. It was in fact the summation of his quarter of a century’s economic studies… 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… 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” (PMM 359).

“In his funeral eulogy for Karl Marx, Engels concluded that ‘Marx was above all a revolutionary… It is doubtful that any figure in history has inspired more violently contradictory opinions than Karl Marx” (Downs, 22). “Only this first part of Marx’s magnum opus appeared in his lifetime,” with its publication in German in 1867 (PMM 359). The remainder was constructed by Engels from Marx’s posthumous papers. Containing Marx’s central concept of surplus value, this first edition in English, translated from the third German edition of Moore and Aveling, is edited by Engels and incorporates substantial revisions Marx made for the first French translation (1872-5). Although Engels published the German edition of volume II in 1885, his preface notes that a translation of it without volume III was necessarily incomplete; the German edition of volume III did not appear until 1894. Draper II:M129. This distinctive association copy is from the library of Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr., and is signed by him on the half title (Vol. I ) and title page (Vol. II). A graduate of Princeton and Harvard, Andrew served as Director of the Mint (1909-10) and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (1910-12). He was elected as a Republican from Massachusetts to the 67th Congress and continued in Congress until his death in 1936.

Text fresh, light edge-wear, faint bit of spotting to extremely good bright gilt-lettered boards. A highly desirable association copy.