Karl Marx - Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production

First printing. Presumed later issue, with ads undated but listing up to nos. 142-143 of the "Humboldt Library of Science" (Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman, issued in 1890). Octavo (24cm). Publisher's red cloth, titled in gilt on spine with designs stamped in black on front cover, in blind on rear cover; floral endpapers; xviii,[1]-506pp;[44]pp ads. Bookplate to front pastedown of Jefferson D. Stewart (Louisville, Kentucky banker and financier), whose pencil ownership signature, dated 1895, also appears on the title page. An exceptional copy in the publisher's cloth binding, minutely rubbed at joints and board corners; floral endpapers, so prone to splitting at the hinges, are fully intact and the text is fresh, bright and unmarked. Very close to a fine copy, and easily the best we have handled.

The early publication history of this first volume of Marx's Capital in America* is bibliographically complex, at times stubbornly ambiguous, and not seldom misrepresented. The earliest copies to appear for sale in America were imported sheets of the Swan Sonnenschein (London) edition of 1887, bound and distributed in America through two New York agents, in one case identified on the pastedowns (Julius Bordello), in another (Scribner & Welfored) on a tipped-in slip (see Philip Foner, "Marx's 'Capital' in the United States," Science & Society, Fall 1967). In 1889, Sonnenschein produced a stereotyped edition which was distributed in America through yet a third agent, D. Appleton, whose name appeared as co-publisher on the title page (making this the first edition to carry any textual indication of an American publisher). Any of these three editions have some claim to being called the "First American Edition," notwithstanding the fact that none were printed in America.

Beginning in January of 1890, Humboldt Publishing Co., a small New York radical publisher, issued what it claimed to be "the only American edition - carefully Revised" of Capital. This was in fact an unauthorized reprinting of the Moore - Aveling translation, issued without the permission of Marx's family, the translators, or the European publishers. To save on distribution costs, Humboldt resorted to a standard 19th-century publishing ploy and issued the work as a four-part serial, nos. 135-138 in its "Humboldt Library of Science" series (at the time, periodicals were subject to much lower postal rates than bound books). Around the same time – priority has never, to our knowledge, been established – Humboldt issued some of its printed sheets of Capital in the one-volume cloth edition we have here. This may be properly described as the first book edition of Capital to be printed in the United States.

Unsurprisingly, given the somewhat haphazard nature of 19th-century radical publishing, some ambiguities remain. First, it is clear from the dates of catalogued copies that Humboldt issued Capital at least twice in serial format – copies exist of issues 135-138 dated January to April 1890; other copies (numbered identically) exist dated October 1 to October 15, 1890 (see “Karl Marx, Capital, First American Editions” at www.karlmarx.lu ). Second, based on inspection of copies in our hands and other catalogued copies in commerce, we note that the clothbound issue appeared with at least three different states of publisher's advertisements following the text – some with ads dated 1889 (presumably the earliest issue); others (as with our copy) with undated ads, but datable from contents to mid-to-late 1890; others with no ads at all. We suspect but cannot prove that the first two issues of the cloth edition correspond with the two known serial issues, the first in January, the second in October, of 1890. Copies without ads were likely issued later, to use up remaining sheets.

Finally, there is a question, not previously commented upon in any of the scholarship we have consulted, regarding Humboldt's claim that this "only American edition" was "carefully Revised." Some previous cataloguers have suggested that the Humboldt edition was a literal reprint of the Sonnenschein stereotype edition of 1889. But this makes little sense; Humboldt could not conceivably have had access to Sonnenschein's stereotype plates, and besides the format and pagination of the two editions are entirely dissimilar. Was Moore & Aveling's translation in fact edited for American readers, and if so, to what degree? This cataloguer has now spent sufficient time in a side-by-side comparison of the Humboldt and Sonnenschein (via Hathi Trust) editions to reach a preliminary conclusion that the only "revisions" consist in the alteration of British spellings to their American equivalents throughout the text (e.g. "labor" for "labour"; "characterize" for "characterise," etc.). No alterations to the substance of Moore and Aveling's translation appear to our eyes – though, to be sure, this is a lengthy work and we have performed only a random sampling of the text; an exhaustive comparison of the texts has never, to our knowledge, been carried out and this would seem to be a fruitful subject for research.

1. Foner, Philip. "Marx's Capital in the United States." In Science & Society, v. 31, no 4 (Fall, 1967), pp 461-66.
2. Amink, Babak. "A Brief History of the Dissemination and Reception of Karl Marx's Capital in the United States and Britain." In World Review of Political Economy, v.7 no. 3 (Fall 2016), pp.334-349.
3. "Karl Marx, Capital, First American Editions," web article at Karl Marx Library, Luxembourg (www.karlmarx.lu)

*NOTE: The second and third volumes had not yet been completed by Engels at this date, and would not appear in the U.S. until the 1909 Kerr edition.
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