Books

pp. 75. 16mo., measuring 16.5 x 10.5 cm. Twice-stapled coral card covers with stylized title in black. Touch of sunning along the spine, single neat bookplate affixed to the lower-left margin of the inner-cover. Text-block uniformly, and remarkably well-preserved with tight, sound stapled binding; very small loss to the upper-margin of pages 15/16 (entirely unaffecting text). Corresponds to OCLC #251591357. At time of cataloguing we were able to locate only but one North American institutional holding (within the limitations of WorldCat and other bibliographical resources). Leitir (Icelandic National Library) retains a number of issues. KVK notes a number of continental holdings, chiefly amongst German institutions. Not found in LoC, BAC/LAC, BL, et al. Exceptionally rare to be offered in commerce. Text in Icelandic. The Icelandic edition was translated by the "affable and loquacious" Einar Olgeirsson, teacher, politician, and a founding member of the island nation s Communist Party [Komm�nistaflokkur �slands] while still a student at Humboldt University of Berlin (then known as Friedrich Wilhelm University) in the final year of his stay in 1923. It would be refined, and published upon his return to Iceland in 1924, six years before the formal establishment of the party, in his home-town of Akureyri, and with the assistance of a young radical named Stefan Pjetursson (codenamed Jon Helgason by the Comintern), an avowed Communist who had previously published a short work on the Bolshevik Revolution in 1921. An exceedingly rare, and unique appearance of the first Icelandic-language issue of the enormously influential political treatise popularly, and somewhat misleadingly, known as the 'Communist Manifesto', or in the words of scholar John Spargo who referred to it as the "Declaration of Independence of the Socialist Party". Widely considered "by far the most influential single piece of political writing since the French Revolutionary 'Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen' it was penned in Brussels in late 1847, and anonymously published in February 21, 1848 in German as, 'Manifest der Kommunistischen Parteiby', as commissioned by the London-based, 'Bund der Kommunisten' [The Communist League], and printed by the Kommunistischer Arbeiterbildungsvere [Workers' Educational Association] out of their London-based office located at 46 Liverpool St. Organized into four sections with a preamble, the Manifesto would outline Marx and Engels' theories of the class struggle, criticism of capitalist modes of production, and, in their view, its inherent contradictions, ultimately calling for its "forcible overthrow". Circulation of the original was limited to a handful of key leaders within the movement, but preparations were swiftly made for its translation into all European languages. As Eric Hobsbawm notes in the Introduction to The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition : "Even before the Russian Revolution of 1917 it had been issued in several hundred editions in some thirty languages, including three editions in Japanese and one in Chinese. Nevertheless, its main region of influence was the central belt of Europe, stretching from France in the West to Russia in the East. Not surprisingly, the largest number of editions were in the Russian language (70) plus 35 more in the languages of the Tsarist empire - 11 in Polish, 7 in Yiddish, 6 in Finnish, 5 in Ukrainian, 4 in Georgian, 2 in Armenian. There were 55 editions in German plus, for the Habsburg Empire, another 9 in Hungarian and 8 in Czech (but only 3 in Croat and one each in Slovak and Slovene), 34 in English (covering the USA also, where the first translation appeared in 1871), 26 in French and 11 in Italian - the first not until 1889. Its impact in southwestern Europe was small - 6 editions in Spanish (including the Latin American ones); one in Portuguese. So was its impact in southeastern Europe (7 editions in Bulgarian, 4 in Serb, 4 in Romanian, and a single edition in La.

The "Manifesto of the Communist Party," commonly known as the "Communist Manifesto," was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It serves as a political pamphlet advocating for the principles of communism and outlining the goals and strategies of the Communist League.