September 14, 1867

Das Kapital

Volume I of Karl Marx's Das Kapital is published in Hamburg

Two days before the publication notice appeared, Marx was still complaining to Engels about his publisher's delay.

A trade notice in the Börsenblatt

The first German volume of Karl Marx's Das Kapital was published by Otto Meissner of Hamburg on 14 September 1867. That day's Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel carried Meissner's notice that the volume had appeared.

The notice identified it as Volume I, Book I, “Der Produktionsprocess des Kapitals,” and priced it at 3⅓ Reichsthaler. The reported first-edition print run was apparently 1,000 copies.

One volume, not the set

What went on sale was Book I, the analysis of capital's production process — not the complete, later three-volume Capital. Engels edited the unfinished manuscripts that became Volumes II and III.

Nor was anything published in English that day. The first English edition appeared in 1887, translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling and edited by Engels.

Marx started revising immediately

Marx had delivered the manuscript to Meissner and finished the final proof corrections in August; the release followed a delay he complained about to Engels on 12 September.

His own annotated first-edition copy is crowded with penciled corrections. He did not treat the 1867 wording and arrangement as fixed, and reworked the difficult opening chapters for the second German edition and the French edition.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

The exact date rests on the publisher’s “has appeared” notice in the 14 September Börsenblatt and is also used by the International Institute of Social History. It is best understood as the documented trade-publication date, not a ceremonial launch.