MARX, Karl, 1818-1883, communist, economist and philosopher

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0097 ARC 001
Held at	: British Library of Political and Economic Science   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.lse.ac.uk/library ›
Full title	: MARX, Karl, 1818-1883, communist, economist and philosopher
Date(s)	: 1845-1846
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 1 volume
Name of creator(s)	: Marx | Karl | 1818-1883 | communist, economist and philosopher

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Born 1818 in Trier, Prussia; studied at the University of Bonn, 1835-1836, and the University of Berlin, 1836-1841; contributor to and editor of the Cologne liberal democratic newspaper, the Rheinische Zeitung, 1842; following marriage to Jenny von Westphalen, moved to Paris, where he became a revolutionary and communist; co-editor, with Arnold Ruge, of a new review, the Deutsch-französische Jahrbücher (German-French Yearbooks), 1843-1845, during which time he met Friedrich Engels; expelled from France, 1845, moved to Belgium, and renounced Prussian nationality; wrote and published Die heilige Familie (1845) with Engels; in Jun 1847 joined a secret society in London, the League of the Just, which afterwards became the Communist League, for whom he and Engels wrote a pamphlet entitled The Communist Manifesto, (1848); returned to Prussia, 1848, where he founded the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1849, and used the newspaper to urge a constitutional democracy and war with Russia; became leader of the Workers' Union and organized the first Rhineland Democratic Congress in August 1848; banished in May 1849, and moved to London; European correspondent for the New York Tribune, 1851-1862, though for the most part he and his family lived in poverty; published his first book on economic theory, Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy), 1859; member of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association, 1864-1876; published Das Kapital, Berlin 1867 (the second and third volumes, unfinished by Marx, were edited by Engels and published in 1885 and 1894); died 1883.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Two letters from Karl Marx to (Christian Johann) Heinrich Heine, written in Brussels in Mar 1845 and Apr 1846, the first requesting material from Heine for a radical periodical published by one of his friends [possibly the Deutsch-französische Jahrbücher (German-French Yearbooks) for which Marx was co-editor at that time], and the second concerning Heine's book on Ludwig Börne, the leader of the German radicals in Paris (Ludwig Börne, eine Denkschrift, written in 1840).

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Two items.

Conditions governing access:

Open.

Conditions governing reproduction:

No copyright restrictions. No documents may be photocopied.

Finding aids:

On-line catalogue available.

Archival Information

Archival history:

Previously listed as SR (ARC) 1.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Allied Materials

Related material:

The BLPES holds further material relating to Marx in the papers of Percy Henry Collick, the papers of the Independent Labour Party and in Coll Misc 0412.

The Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Netherlands, holds correspondence and papers of Karl Marx, 1835-1883.

Publication note:

Letter 1 reproduced in facsimile and translated in A momento of the British Library of Political and Economic Science, (LSE, 1978). Both letters are printed in Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterwegung, 8 (1919).

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Sources: Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 1995); British Library On-Line Public Access Catalogue 97; Historical Manuscripts Commission National Register of Archives.Compiled by Sarah Aitchison as part of the RSLP AIM25 project.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
Sep 2000