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First edition of the revolutionary French socialist's most famous work, urging the working class to unite, a call for international emancipation which appeared five years before the Communist Manifesto. Tristan is "perhaps the most celebrated of all 19th-century French feminists" (Moses, p. 107). Tristan's struggles as both the poverty-stricken illegitimate daughter of a Peruvian noble and as the wife of a violently abusive husband forced her to travel at various points in her life to England (as a ladies' companion) and Peru (in the hopes of re-establishing her family ties). Upon returning to Paris in 1835 Tristan fought her husband, André Chazal, for custody of her two surviving children, and succeeded in regards to her daughter. It was not until 1836, after Chazal shot Tristan, that she was granted legal separation and the right to take back the name Tristan. Both as respite from and because of this domestic turmoil, Tristan became enthusiastically involved in a number of feminist and socialist groups and activities - she published pamphlets on female immigration, petitioned in favour of divorce and for the abolishment of capital punishment, attended meetings of the Gazette des femmes group, and engaged with the utopian socialism of the Fourierists. "In Union ouvrière, Tristan rallies the French working class, urging them to create a national organization that would be financed by subscriptions from the twenty-five million workers. She believed that any First edition of the revolutionary French socialist's most famous work, urging the working class to unite, a call for international emancipation which appeared five years before the Communist Manifesto. Tristan is "perhaps the most celebrated of all 19th-century French feminists" (Moses, p. 107). Tristan's struggles as both the poverty-stricken illegitimate daughter of a Peruvian noble and as the wife of a violently abusive husband forced her to travel at various points in her life to England (as a ladies' companion) and Peru (in the hopes of re-establishing her family ties). Upon returning to Paris in 1835 Tristan fought her husband, André Chazal, for custody of her two surviving children, and succeeded in regards to her daughter. It was not until 1836, after Chazal shot Tristan, that she was granted legal separation and the right to take back the name Tristan. Both as respite from and because of this domestic turmoil, Tristan became enthusiastically involved in a number of feminist and socialist groups and activities - she published pamphlets on female immigration, petitioned in favour of divorce and for the abolishment of capital punishment, attended meetings of the Gazette des femmes group, and engaged with the utopian socialism of the Fourierists. "In Union ouvrière, Tristan rallies the French working class, urging them to create a national organization that would be financed by subscriptions from the twenty-five million workers. She believed that any change among the working class must be initiated by the workers themselves: 'Now the day has come when one must act, and it is up to you and only you to act in the interest of your own cause'. Despite her call to action, Tristan maintained a firm stance against violence and called only for passive resistance; she believed that destructive acts would only heighten workers' problems. She tried to enlist the bourgeoisie in her plan on the basis that it would help prevent begging and theft. The second part of Tristan's crusade was her attempt to improve the position of women within the workplace and society. She argued that all classes of women should participate in the Workers' Union to lobby simultaneously for feminism and socialism. Her third chapter, entitled 'Why I Mention Women', aims to establish continuity between the desires of the workers and those of women" (Orlando). Unable to find a publisher willing to print the unorthodox tract, she funded the book's publication herself through donations from friends, acquaintances, and public appeal. From these donations, 14,000 copies of this first edition were printed (stated as "Edition populaire"), which she sold for 50 centimes each. In Lyons, the fundraising efforts of her working-class followers underwrote a further printing of 10,000 copies. Such circulation was very high for the time: the print run of the Communist Manifesto in 1848, by contrast, was 2,000 copies. "Increasing scholarly attention is revealing her as a pivotal figure in the shift from early nineteenth-century utopian to Marxist economic socialism. Her insistence on the inextricability of class and gender oppression makes her a foundational socialist feminist theorist" (ibid.). READ MORE Duodecimo. Uncut in original yellow wrappers printed in black. Housed in quarter calf chemise and slipcase. Slight split to front joint but holding, wrappers and contents clean, a very good, well-preserved copy. Claire Goldberg Moses, French Feminism in the Nineteenth Century, 1984.