Capital.

first 'Stereotype Edition', and the third appearance in English overall

Although designated 'Stereotype Edition' on the title page, the setting is in fact identical to the first American edition printed the same year with the dual imprint 'New York: Appleton & Co. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co.'

The ownership inscription to the front free endpaper is dated '5/11/88' suggesting this edition with the sole London imprint was brought to the press towards the end of 1888, the publication date being for-dated to the following year. We can trace no interim publication between this edition and the first English edition which was brought to the press in 1896, and reprinted the following year.

Das Kapital was the summation of over twenty-years of research in the reading rooms of the British Museum, and followed on from his earlier work on political economy Zur Kritik der Politisches Oekonomie, printed in 1859.

Only the first volume, A critical analysis of capitalist production, was complete at the time of Marx's death in 1883, with this translation by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling published in London 4 years later. The second and third volumes of Marx's work were published posthumously in 1885 and 1894, but not translated into English until Kerr's edition was printed in 1906 to 1909.

Despite the German edition volume two being available in 1885, Engels, in his preface to this translation, explained that he deliberately held off including it in this edition as he felt any translation of the second volume would be incomplete without the translation of the third, which had not yet be published.

'Aveling was the husband of Marx's youngest daughter, Eleanor, and Moore an old friend, an unwilling businessman (like Engels), who later turned to the law and ended as a magistrate in Nigeria.' (PMM).

'The history of the twentieth century is Marx's legacy. Stalin, Mao, Che, Castro - the icons and monsters of the modern age have all presented themselves as his heirs. Whether he would recognise them as such is quite another matter [...] Nevertheless, writing one hundred years after his death half the world's population was ruled by governments that professed Marxism to be their guiding faith. His ideas have transformed the study of economics, history, geography, sociology and literature. Not since Jesus Christ has an obscure pauper inspired such global devotion - or been so calamitously misinterpreted' (Francis Wheen, in his Introduction to Karl Marx, 1999).

Scarce. OCLC records just 4 copies of this edition in institutional collections worldwide (Trinity College, Cambridge, University of Southern California, Newberry Library, Illinois, and University of Hong Kong).

First Stereotype edition, third appearance in English overall; 8vo (23 x 15 cm); ownership inscription in pen to front free endpaper recto, old residue to front pastedown, a little toned; publisher's blind-stamped maroon cloth, lettered in gilt to spine within single gilt filet border, small puncture hole, slightly soiled and discoloured, spine ends neatly repaired, very good; xxxi, [1], 816pp.