Manifesto of the Communist Party.

£750 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

The first new English translation of the Communist Manifesto to appear after the authorised English version printed by the commercial publisher William Reeves in 1888 and translated by Samuel Moore and Engels himself. The decision to produce an entirely new English translation so soon after the authorised English version is strange indeed and, as is so often the case with translations of the works of Marx and Engels, the motivation for doing so was principally political. The preface dated ‘September, 1909’ states: “We offer the workers of Great Britain a new translation of the ‘Communist Manifesto’, not because we claim to have improved upon previous translation, but because these previous translations are the property of private firms and individuals. This new translation will not belong to any private individuals, but to the working class, through its political organisation, the Socialist Labour Party. We regard this work as the Charter of Freedom of the workers of the world, and we therefore think that it is the duty of the Party of the workers of Great Britain to issue its own translation thereof” (p. i). The objection, then, was that by putting the Manifesto “into the hands of the publisher Reeves, Engels had erected a juridical bar against pirated and distorted editions, at least in Britain” (Draper, p. 91). But who was this group who had such lofty regard of their own status amongst the working class that they claimed to be “ its political organisation” (p. i, emphasis

• Year: 1913

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