Books and Manuscripts

Marx, Karl
Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production
New York: The Humboldt Publishing Co., no date (ca. 1891). 8vo. xviii, 506, (33, ads) pp. Publisher's red cloth, stamped in blind, black, and in gilt, minor wear to spine, label obscured at bottom of same; color in spine-ends touched up; scratch with loss to cloth in bottom rear board; rear hinge split; front endpaper loose; rear endpaper wanting; remnants of removed label on rear paste-down; Census Office Library, Washington, D.C. blindstamp on title-page; library ink and pencil numbering in upper and lower gutter of verso of title-page and p. (iii); contemporary ownership signature on front free endpaper.

Early and rare issue of the first English-language edition printed in the United States of Das Kapital. An incisive critique of private property, capitalism, and the social relations it creates, and one of the most important and influential works of modern times.

Humboldt, a small left-wing publisher, first published this work in four parts as part of the "Humboldt Library of Science" publication between September and October 1890. The following year, they bound the four installments together and released a single volume (the present work) without the permission of Marx's family, Friedrich Engels, or the European publisher.

This copy is bound without the advertisements which accompanied the original parts. The text comprises Moore and Aveling's translation of the first volume of Das Kapital, Marx's prefaces to the first and second editions, and Engels' preface to the first English edition.