THE RARE FIRST DUTCH TRANSLATION

MARX, KARL.

Kapitaal en Arbeid. Bewerkt door F. Domela Nieuwenhuis.

The Hague, Liebers & Co, (1881).

8vo. Uncut in the original printed wrappers. Spine missing some of the paper and upper part of front wrapper and lower part of back wrappers detached. Wrappers brownspotted and previous owner's name in pencil to upper margin of front wrapper. Pp. 37-40 missing some of the paper in upper margin - far from affecting text, otherwise internally fine and clean. VII, 82 pp.

The rare first Dutch translation of Marx’s “Lohnarbeit und Kapital” (i.e. "Wage Labour and Capital") here in the exceedingly rare printed wrappers, presumably being the only known copy in wrappers. This seminal work by Karl Marx, which, due to its aim to be a popular exposition of his central theories of capitalism and the economic relationships between workers and capitalists, became one of the most generally influential and widely read of Marx' works. It is widely considered the precursor to Das Kapital.

"Wage Labour and Capital" was originally written as a series of newspaper articles in 1847 and was first published, however only fragmentarily, in the form of five articles in April 1849 in the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung". Because of the political conditions, the printing of the series had to be ended, and thus only these five articles appeared, as there was no sign of the rest of it between the papers of Marx that were found after his death. The work did not appear again until 1881. In 1891, Engels published a re-worked version of the article, which took into account Marx' later developments in his economic theory (for instance Engels inserted the distinction between "labour" and "labour-power", which Marx did not make in the original version), and during the 1890'ies the work appeared in numerous languages and in an enormous amount of editions.

Marx' seminal theories that are made easily accessible in this important publication include his Labour Theory of Value, his Theory of Concentration of Capital, his Theory of Alienation etc., which were all later developed in the "Capital", three fundamental theories that have influenced all later economical-political thought.

Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis (1846-1919), a Dutch socialist. "Originally a Lutheran pastor (1870-1879), he left the church, founded the socialist weekly Recht voor Allen (1879). He played a leading part in developing the Social-Democratic movement in the Netherlands; was elected to parliament for a term (1881-1891); disappointed in legislating social reform, he turned to anarchism (1890s). He authored a number of propaganda brochures." (Draper: The Marx-Engels Glossary, p. 154.)

Order-nr.: 60211