Description
Octavo, two volumes, xxxi,[1],363pp (Vol.1); [365]-816 (Vol.2). Original maroon cloth, covers stamped in blind, title in gilt on spine. Brown endpapers with bookplate affixed to front endpaper of both volumes. Half titles in each volumes. Tipped-in newspaper portraits of Karl Marx in both volumes opposite title page with some transference of image. Some loss at edge of the spine in both volumes. Exposure to moisture, resulting in cloth detaching from boards in volume I, not affecting text. Occasional academic notes in pencil in both volumes. Housed in custom clamshell case, with title and decorative gilt on spine. (Draper II: M-129)
Comments: This is the first English edition of Das Kapital, which was published after the death of its author, Karl Marx. Marx completed Volume I during his lifetime, but died in 1883, leaving his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels to edit and publish Volume II and Volume III. This important work is considered a rebuttal to the works of Adam Smith, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill, with Marx being critical of the capitalist system and its exploitation of labor.