The evolution of the text of Karl Marx

Karl Marx has been published in five successive editions (1939, 1948, 1963, 1978 and 2013, the last edited by Henry Hardy). Berlin made substantial changes for the third and fourth editions, and additions that he had made for a German translation published in 1959 were also added in the 1960 reprint of the second English edition. Some of the changes were minor amendments, but some were substantial new passages, taking account of newly published material from Marx’s Nachlaß, and recent work by other scholars. Since Berlin’s death the chronology and content of these changes have started to be discussed; the table below is intended to facilitate this discussion.

See catalogue of Berlin papers in the Bodleian Library for details of texts held there. A full concordance to the successive editions of the books is available here.

Page reference in the 4th/5th edition (1978/2013)    New material Date added    Edition/page reference for first appearance of addition
22/28 unlike some [...] human progress. 1978 4/22
36/45 For unless some relation [...] add up to human history. 1963 3/48
89–90/113–4 The theory matured gradually [...] by Marx’s name. 1963 3/123–4
93–6/117–121 The central Hegelian conception [...] their revolutionary practice. 1963 3/127–32
98–99/125 Marx’s immediate successors [...] whittled down. 1963 3/136
99–102/125–130 Like Hegel [...] mechanically determined. 1960 2 (1960)/130–7
102–4/130–2 The laws of history [...] particularly in our day. 1978 4/102–4
104–5/132–4 Because the historical function [...] which their nature craves. 1960 2 (1960)/135–7
188/241 While he approved many [...] be transformed overnight. 1963 3/257–8

The original text of Karl Marx was very much longer, at some 100,000 words, than the Editors of the series for which it was commissioned, the Home University Library, were willing to accept. So Berlin cut it by about 25,000 words. The uncut text survived; this has now been collated with the first edition of the book by Simon Toubeau, and posted on this site, with the excised material distinguished from the material that was retained.

Code

The following code is used in the online PDF linked to above:

bold present in original typescript but not in first edition
italic present in first edition but not in long typescript
[footnote]  
 change made to original typescript other than a cut or addition
(A9)
 page 9 in the cut typescript
[9]
 page 9 begins in first edition