Vol. I, in the rare second edition, 1872 (last to appear in Marx's lifetime)!
Karl Marx. Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Oekonomie. Von Karl Marx. Erster Band. Buch I: Der Produktionsprocess des Kapitals. Zweite verbesserte Auflage. Hamburg. Verlag von Otto Meissner. 1872.
Large 8vo. [4], 3-830pp. Printing and the Mind of Man 359 (first edition 1867).
Rubel 633. Marx/Engels Erstdrucke 32.
Second edition of volume I, first published in 1867, and the only volume of Karl Marx's magnum opus to appear in his lifetime.
The second and third volumes were edited by Engels after Marx's death and were first published in 1885 and 1894.
This volume includes the central concept of surplus-value and in this second edition contains the first printing of Marx's famous Nachwort on pp. 813-822.
Although written by Marx in London, mostly studying in the Reading Room of the British Museum, Das Kapital was published in Hamburg in German and the language barrier was an insurmountable obstacle to those few Englishmen who actually wanted to study the text -- no English edition was available in Marx's lifetime.
This classic of political economy is quite rare.
What makes the present copy particularly interesting is that it comes with the original printed boards which, on the back, give a list of other works published by Meissner, including Marx's own "Der Achtzehnte Brumaire" and Engels' "Die preussische Militärfrage."
Unfortunately, the spine is missing, and the two boards are just held together with scotch tape.
The copy includes the dedication leaf to Wilhelm Wolff. (As a result, quire 52 has just 7 leaves, the eighth leaf being this dedication leaf, which is inserted between leaves 1 and 2 of quire 1).
Old library stamp on front board and title page.
Old shelf stamp inside front board. First few leaves heavily browned, and curled at outer edge.
Underlining in pencil and red & blue pencil, esp. in first part of volume. A few marginal annotations too. This text was clearly read with great interest at one point. Light age-toning, some foxing throughout; a few places where a piece of paper has clearly been used to mark a spot have browned offsetting from those inserts.
Interesting copy of this rare and desirable classic of political economy.
