Edward Spencer Beesly - Letter From Marx

Letter From Marx

Auction lot description of Beesly's copy of Das Kapital: This is an excellent association copy, inscribed to Karl Marx’s friend Professor Edward Spencer Beesly (1831–1915), positivist of the August Comte school of thought, historian, and one of the founding editors of the Fortnightly Review. In 1868, when Marx & Engels were trying to develop international momentum for the economic philosophy contained in this work, they contacted the Fortnightly Review via Beesly to see if it would be interested in publishing a critique of Das Kapital; at the time Marx wrote to Engels: “Prof. Beesly, who is one of the triumvirate which secretly runs this rag, has… declared, he is ‘morally certain’ (it depends on him!) a criticism would be accepted” . An eventual review was passed on to the then chief editor John Morley by Beesly, but Morley apparently found the piece unreadable and would not allow publication, even after Beesly had suggested Marx could try and make the article less dry and more popularist in tone. Beesly subsequently suggested Marx & Engels contact The Westminster Review, but nothing seems to have come of this either. The further inscription, possibly by Beesly, reads “Died 14 March 1883”, the date of Marx’s death."