British Library acquires The Communist Manifesto

09 March 2009

Only complete first edition in UK obtained by national library
"Workers of the world unite!"

Appearing as a wave of revolutions swept Europe in Spring 1848, the pamphlet that we know as The Communist Manifesto was first printed in London. An association of German political exiles sponsored the printing - in German, by an obscure radical press - of what would undoubtedly become one of the most momentous political works of all time.

160 years on, the British Library has acquired what is believed to be the only complete copy of the first edition of The Communist Manifesto to be held in the UK, and the only copy in the world to be held by a national library.

Despite its later fame, the slim 23-page pamphlet by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had limited impact at the time. Although several hundred copies were distributed, fewer than 30 copies of the first edition are known to have survived. The British Library's acquisition will ensure that a copy of this landmark document is preserved in the city of its birth, where it can be seen and studied in the Library's Reading Rooms at St. Pancras.

"The Communist Manifesto has been described as the best-known and certainly the most widely translated pamphlet of the nineteenth century," said Elizabeth James, Head of Nineteenth century British Collections at the British Library. "It also has a special significance for the Library. Following his return to London as a penniless refugee in September 1849, Marx obtained a ticket for the British Museum Library - former home of the British Library - and was a regular Reader during the eighteen fifties and sixties."

For further information and images, please contact Ben Sanderson at the British Library Press Office: +44 (0)1937 546126 or email ben.sanderson@bl.uk

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