# Is "The Communist Manifesto (Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei)" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Communist Manifesto (Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (Bildungs-Gesellschaft für Arbeiter, 1848) is identified by: True first is the anonymously issued pamphlet printed in London in late February 1848 — neither Marx nor Engels is named on it. The German-language original (London, 1848) is the true first.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- True first is the anonymously issued pamphlet printed in London in late February 1848 — neither Marx nor Engels is named on it
- It is a 23-page pamphlet in dark green printed paper wrappers, on poor-quality stock, cursorily proofread and littered with typographic errors
- Recognised first-edition points (Andréas no
- Kuczynski census): 23 numbered pages, page 17 correctly numbered, and the misprint 'heraus beschwor' in the last line of page 6
- The type was reset later in 1848 (April–May) into a corrected 30-page German edition — that 30-page setting is NOT the first and became the basis of later editions
- Extreme rarity: roughly 27 copies recorded in the modern census, most with minor variants; confirm the London 1848 imprint, dark green wrappers, 23-page collation and the page-6 misprint before treating any copy as first
- Publisher imprint reads Bildungs-Gesellschaft für Arbeiter

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels |
| Publisher | Bildungs-Gesellschaft für Arbeiter |
| Year | 1848 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | True first is the anonymously issued pamphlet printed in London in late February 1848 — neither Marx nor Engels is named on it |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
True first is the anonymously issued pamphlet printed in London in late February 1848 — neither Marx nor Engels is named on it. It is a 23-page pamphlet in dark green printed paper wrappers, on poor-quality stock, cursorily proofread and littered with typographic errors. Recognised first-edition points (Andréas no. 1; Kuczynski census): 23 numbered pages, page 17 correctly numbered, and the misprint 'heraus beschwor' in the last line of page 6. The type was reset later in 1848 (April–May) into a corrected 30-page German edition — that 30-page setting is NOT the first and became the basis of later editions. Extreme rarity: roughly 27 copies recorded in the modern census, most with minor variants; confirm the London 1848 imprint, dark green wrappers, 23-page collation and the page-6 misprint before treating any copy as first.

## Is this the true first?
The German-language original (London, 1848) is the true first. The census note's framing of Samuel Moore as the 'first English translation' is wrong: the first English translation was Helen Macfarlane's, serialized in 1850 in George Julian Harney's Chartist paper The Red Republican. The first AUTHORIZED English book edition is the Samuel Moore translation, revised and annotated by Engels — William Reeves, London, 1888 — which is a separate collectible, neither the first English appearance nor the true first of the work.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Not a book-club title (1848 pamphlet). Beware the corrected 30-page April–May 1848 German setting, the many English printings struck from the 1888 Reeves stereotype plates, and the countless modern reprints and facsimiles — none has first-edition standing; a modern trade printing has no first standing whatsoever.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Communist Manifesto (Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei)* by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-communist-manifesto-manifest-der-kommunistischen-partei
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.