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Exceptionally rare first edition in Spanish, an abridged translation of volume one of Marx's Das Kapital (Capital). Its scarcity is explained by the brittle, poor quality of the paper stock - the same used for printing Zafrilla's newspaper - and its small print run, thought to number no more than 1,000 copies in total. Pablo Correa y Zafrilla (1844–1888) was a federalist, translator, and lawyer. He was professionally attached to the prestigious Colegio de Madrid, enjoyed a close friendship with Catalan federalist Francesc Pi i Margall, and was appointed a deputy of the Cortes Generales in 1873 during the First Spanish Republic. He was also the editor of La República, a newspaper which had announced its intention in early 1886 to publish a serialised translation of Capital, which would be delivered bimonthly to its subscribers. It was decided that the pages would be twice the size of the newspaper's usual publications, to account for the length of Marx's work and to prevent the individual parts from becoming too thick. Though he promised to work directly from the original German (1867), and said as much in his preface, Zafrilla actually based his translation on the first edition in French, translated by Joseph Roy and published in forty-four livraisons by Lachâtre from 1872 to 1875 (see Ribas 1985 for a detailed analysis of the textual similarities between the French and Spanish text). The first part of Zafrilla's El Capital was sent to subscribers with a copy of the newspaper in February 1886 - the title page reflects the year of first delivery, not final printing - and publication must have been completed by mid-1887, when La República was offering subscribers the option, for one peseta, of binding all the parts into one quarto volume in "elegantes tapas de tela" (elegant cloth covers). Non-subscribers could purchase all the parts, without cloth, for 60 cents; it is possible that the printed wrapper, dated 1887, which is sometimes mentioned in relation to Zafrilla's translation, was produced for this purpose. It is estimated, therefore, that the print run can have been no more than a thousand copies in total, with a few hundred of this amount reserved for subscribers, the rest being made available for separate purchase (Castillo, p. 93). An unknown remainder of these was apparently later bound up for La República to offer as gifts to new subscribers or those who renewed their subscription for a further six months, yet we have found no record of any other copy surviving (with the exception of that cited by Ribas, below). According to WorldCat no library is known to possess El Capital, and no other copies are recorded as having appeared at auction. Pedro Ribas, a renowned collector of Marxist literature, states that he has handled just one in his lifetime, that held at the Faculty of Law, University of Salamanca (p. 205). Zafrilla's translation received little to no comment in the contemporary press. When alluded to, it was dismissed as being imperfect and incomplete, particularly by El Socialista, the periodical founded by the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) in 1886. Brief excerpts from Marx's writings had been translated into Spanish before - beginning in 1872 when La Emancipación, the Spanish IWMA organ, published translations of Marx's preface to the first German edition and his letter to Lachâtre in the French edition (Draper, Chronicle, 72:58) - but Zafrilla's translation was the first concerted effort to present in full the message of Capital to a Spanish audience. The present copy is a remarkable survival considering the complexity of its serialized publication. Bound before the Marx is a copy of Pedro Esatsén's La Protección y el libre cambio. Consideraciones generales sobre la organización económica de las nacionalidades y la libertad de comercio, Barcelona, Sucesores of Ramírez and Co., 1880. READ MORE Tall quarto (217 x 144 mm.) Bound with another work (see note) in contemporary half cloth and marbled boards, spine ruled and lettered gilt. Housed in a black quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Spine ends lightly rubbed, corners and board extremities worn, free endpapers with vertical crease. Tax stamps of the Spanish crown ("timbre 3 pesetas 10 kilos Madrid"), with their arms, to a few pages, partially obscuring the text, printing flaw to page 21 affecting a few characters only; a very good copy. Not listed in the standard Marx bibliographies. See Santiago Castillo, "Marxismo y Socialismo en el siglo XIX español", in Manuel Ortiz Heras, David Ruiz González, & Isidro Sánchez Sánchez (eds.), Movimientos sociales y estado en la España contemporánea (

"Das Kapital," written by Karl Marx, is a seminal work critiquing the capitalist system's foundations and mechanisms. Published in 1867, this extensive analysis of capitalism delves into its economic processes, the exploitation inherent within, and its eventual contradictions which Marx believed would lead to its downfall. Marx introduces key concepts such as commodity, value, surplus value, and the labor theory of value, arguing that the value of a commodity is determined by the labor required for its production. He criticizes how capitalists profit by exploiting workers, paying them less than the value of their labor while selling the products for their full value. Marx's critique extends to the dynamics of capital accumulation, technological advancements, and their effects on the proletariat, predicting increasing capital centralization and crises stemming from capitalism's internal contradictions. "Das Kapital" covers the circulation and distribution of capital, explaining how surplus value is divided among different classes and sectors, leading to cycles of boom and bust. Despite its influence, "Das Kapital" has faced criticism for its total failure in economic predictions, such as the underestimation of capitalism's adaptability and the overemphasis on the labor theory of value. Critics argue Marx's predictions of escalating class struggle and the proletariat revolution have not materialized as expected, questioning his views on human nature and the efficiency of market mechanisms. Nonetheless, "Das Kapital" remains a pivotal work in economic and political thought, offering a deep, if wrong, critique of capitalism and its socio-economic impacts.