606. Marx (Karl) Das Kapital. "Kritik der politischen Oekonomie…Erster Band, first edition, inscribed by the author to Professor E.S. Beesly on verso of title, with further contemporary inscription ?by Beesly below, inscription offset slightly onto printed dedication p., bound in later half morocco, [PMM 359], 8vo, Hamburg & New York, 1867."
est. £25000 – £35000
"“The New Religion” Printing and the Mind of Man, 1967.
“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.” Athenæum review of English edition, 1887.
The first volume of Marx’s magnum opus, and the only one to be published in his lifetime, the further two volumes published posthumously under the editorship of Friedrich Engels. Such preeminent works signed and/or inscribed thus by Marx are incredibly scarce, with no comparable titles seemingly appearing at auction in the last twenty-five years.
This is an excellent association copy, inscribed to Karl Marx’s friend Professor Edward Spencer Beesly (1831–1915), positivist of the August Comte school of thought, historian, and one of the founding editors of the Fortnightly Review.
In 1868, when Marx & Engels were trying to develop international momentum for the economic philosophy contained in this work, they contacted the Fortnightly Review via Beesly to see if it would be interested in publishing a critique of Das Kapital; at the time Marx wrote to Engels: “Prof. Beesly, who is one of the triumvirate which secretly runs this rag, has… declared, he is ‘morally certain’ (it depends on him!) a criticism would be accepted” [8th January 1868].
An eventual review was passed on to the then chief editor John Morley by Beesly, but Morley apparently found the piece unreadable and would not allow publication, even after Beesly had suggested Marx could try and make the article less dry and more popularist in tone. Beesly subsequently suggested Marx & Engels contact The Westminster Review, but nothing seems to have come of this either.
The further inscription, possibly by Beesly, reads “Died 14 March 1883”, the date of Marx’s death."