Karl Marx: His Life and Thought

Karl Marx: His Life and Thought
	Cover of the first edition
Author	David McLellan
Language	English
Subject	Karl Marx
Publisher	Macmillan Publishers
Publication date	1973
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	464 (1995 edition)
ISBN	978-0-333-44541-9

Karl Marx : His Life and Thought is a 1973 biography of Karl Marx by the political scientist David McLellan. The work was republished as Karl Marx: A Biography in 1995.

Bibliographic information

First edition published in London and New York:

McLellan, David (1973a). Karl Marx: His Life and Thoughts. London etc.: MacMillan Press.^[1]
McLellan, David (1973b). Karl Marx: His Life and Thoughts. New York etc.: Harper & Row.^[2]

These editions were republished several times,^[3] in different forms, also as an e-book (after the MacMillan 1973 edition).^[4]

In 1995 a republication appeared under a different name:

McLellan, David (1995). Karl Marx : A Biography. London etc.: Papermac.^[5]

In 1975 McLellan also wrote a much more condensed biography of Karl Marx, of 88 pages, with the simple title Marx. This work was reprinted many times (12 times between 1975 and 1988).^[6]

Background

The first generally known and complete biography of Karl Marx was written by Franz Mehring, and published, first in German as Karl Marx. Geschichte seines Leben (Karl Marx: The Story of His Life) in 1918.^[7]

It would take fifty-five years, before the next really important biography of Marx was written. This was Karl Marx : His Life and Thoughts by McLellan (1973). "What Mehring's biography had been for the first half of the twentieth century — the standard thus far — McLellan’s was for the second half (and probably even today)."^[8]

Summary

McLellan deals with Marx's intellectual, political and private life.^[9]

Reception

The political theorist Terrell Carver described the book as, "The most comprehensive scholarly account of Marx's life and works".^[10] The historian of science Roger Smith called it "readable and reliable".^[11]

References

^ ISBN 9780333445419; preview of McLellan 1973 in Google Books.
^ McLellan 1973 (New York): OL 5412899M. See also: a second copy, available for borrow at Internet Archive.
^ For an overview of some of the published editions, also in other languages than English, see:
^ E-book freely available at Springer.
^ McLellan 1995: First pages available via archive.org.
^ McLellan, David (1975). Marx. [London]: Fontana.
^ McLellan 1973a, p. xi.
^ Segrillo 2019, p. 10.
^ McLellan 1995a, p. 269-270, 438-447.
^ Carver 1995. p. 211.
^ Smith 1997, p. 954.

Bibliography

Berlin, Isaiah; Ryan, Alan; Carver, Terrell (1995). Karl Marx: His Life and Environment. London: Fontana Press. ISBN 0-00-686339-6.
McLellan, David (1995a). The Thought of Karl Marx: An Introduction. London: Papermac. ISBN 0-333-63948-0.
Segrillo, Angelo (March 2019). "Two Centuries of Karl Marx Biographies: An Overview" (PDF). LEA Working Paper Series. 4.
Smith, Roger (1997). The Norton History of the Human Sciences. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31733-1.