In the end, Capital always wins.

A head, of his time.

A first edition of Das Kapital, inscribed by Karl Marx to the man he once described as one of “my oldest friends and adherents”, and after the friendship had soured as “a scoundrel pure and simple”, is coming up for auction, with an estimated price tag of up to £120,000. 

The first volume was the only one published in Marx’s lifetime – in German – and presentation copies are very rare. Marx signed and dated the book on 18 September 1867, just four days after publication of the landmark work in leftwing ideology. 

He inscribed it to his friend Johann Georg Eccarius, a German tailor and member, like Marx and Frederick Engels, of the League of the Just, which would evolve into the Communist League. 

Simon Roberts, senior books specialist at Bonhams which will sell the book in London on 15 June, described it as “a stunningly important copy of a book that changed the world”. 

The book lasted much longer than the friendship, which broke up in bitter recriminations, and later allegations that Eccarius, who became general secretary of the First International, had been a paid police informant. However it was clearly read avidly, as it still has the British Library reading room ticket he used as a bookmark, and it remained in his family until now.