Books

(9 x 5 5/8 inches). xviii, 506pp. Publisher's red cloth with rules and Humboldt Library emblem stamped in black to front board and in blind to rear board, gilt lettering and black rules stamped to spine, plain endpapers. Early and rare issue of the first English-language edition printed in the United States of "Das Kapital," in the publisher's cloth binding One of the most important and influential works of modern times, Marx's "Capital" is an incisive critique of private property, capitalism, and the social relations it creates. The Humboldt Publishing Company, 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 publishers. This copy is bound without 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. Cf. PMM 359 (first edition); Jason D. Martinek, Socialism and Print Culture in America, 1897-1920 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2012).