Laura and Eleanor Marx, translators of Karl Marx
By Marie Lebert | On July 29, 2024 | Updated July 30, 2024 | Comments (0)
It’s striking that two daughters of Karl Marx, Laura and Eleanor, became important early translators of his work. Marx (1818 – 1883), the German-born social and economic theorist and philosopher, is best known for The Communist Manifesto (co-authored by Friedrich Engels) and Das Kapital.
Laura Marx (1845 – 1911) was the second daughter of Karl Marx and Jenny von Westphalen was instrumental in translating Marx’s works from German into French. Her sister Eleanor Marx (1855-1898), the youngest daughter in the Marx family, was involved in translation from German into English.
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Laura Marx,
translator of Karl Marx’s works into French
Jenny Laura Marx (also known as Laura Lafargue) was a German social activist, and a translator from German to French. Born in Brussels, Belgium, she was the second daughter of Karl Marx and Jenny von Westphalen, an activist and social critic in her own right. Laura moved with her parents to France, and then to Prussia, before the family settled in London in 1849.
Laura married French revolutionary socialist Paul Lafargue in 1868. They spent decades doing political work together, translating Karl Marx’s work into French, and spreading Marxism in France and Spain, while being financially supported by German philosopher Friedrich Engels.
Laura Marx died in 1911 in a suicide pact with her husband Paul Lafargue. She was 66, and he was 69. She left this letter, she wrote in part: “I die with the supreme joy of knowing that at some future time, the cause to which I have been devoted for forty-five years will triumph. Long live Communism! Long Live the international socialism!”
Laura Marx’s main translations were:
- The Communist Manifesto (Manifeste du parti communiste, 1897) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
- Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany (Révolution et contre-révolution en Allemagne, 1900) by Karl Marx
- Religion, philosophie, socialisme (translated with Paul Lafargue, 1901) by Friedrich Engels
- A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Contribution à la critique de l’économie politique, 1909) by Karl Marx
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Eleanor Marx,
translator of Karl Marx’s works into English
Eleanor Marx (1855-1898) was an English socialist activist and a translator from German, French and Norwegian to English. Known to her family as Tussy, she was the English-born youngest daughter Karl Marx and Jenny von Westphalen.
As a child, Eleanor Marx often played in in her father’s study while he was writing Capital (Das Kapital), the foundational text of what would become known as Marxism.
According to her biographer Rachel Holmes, “Tussy’s childhood intimacy with Marx whilst he wrote the first volume of Capital provided her with a thorough grounding in British economic, political and social history. Tussy and Capital grew together.” (quoted in Eleanor Marx: A Life, Bloomsbury, 2014).
Eleanor Marx became her father’s secretary at age sixteen and accompanied him to socialist conferences around the world.
In London, she met with French revolutionary socialist Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, who had fled to England after participating in the Paris Commune, a revolutionary socialist government that briefly ruled Paris in 1871.
Eleanor Marx took her own life at age 43 after discovering that her partner, English Marxist Edward Aveling, had secretly married a young actress the previous year.
Translations of Karl Marx’s work
Eleanor translated some parts of Capital from German to English. She also edited the translations of Marx’s lectures Value, Price and Profit (Lohn, Preis und Profit) and Wage Labour and Capital (Lohnarbeit und Kapital) for them to be published into books.
After Karl Marx’s death in 1883, Eleanor Marx published her father’s unfinished manuscripts and the English edition of Capital (1887).
Other translations
Eleanor translated Lissagaray’s History of the Paris Commune of 1871 (L’Histoire de la Commune de 1871). The English edition was published in 1876. She also translated literary works, including French novelist Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary in 1886.
Eleanor expressly learned Norwegian to translate Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen’s plays, including An Enemy of the People (En Folkefiende) in 1888, and The Lady from the Sea (Fruen fra havet) in 1890.
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Source: A history of translation in 150 portraits
See also: 10 Lost Ladies of Literary Translation
Contributed by Marie Lebert (and edited by Nava Atlas). Reprinted by permission. Marie is a bilingual French-English translator. She has worked as a translator and/or librarian for international organizations and has written ebooks, articles and essays about translation and translators, ebooks, libraries and librarians, and medieval art. She holds a doctorate of linguistics (digital publishing) from the Sorbonne University, Paris, and a master of social science (society and culture) from the University of Caen, Normandy. Find more about women translators of the past at Marie Lebert.
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