Marx, Karl (1818–1883)

Life Dates

Born in Trier on the river Moselle, Karl Marx was educated at the Universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Jena. Both his parents were converted Jews. His stinging journalistic critiques of social conditions and of the Prussian government led to exile from Germany in 1843. After short stays in Paris and Brussels, he decamped to London where he remained. He was instrumental in the birth of European socialism, while also a tireless reader, analyst and writer, mostly at the British Museum which then housed the British Library. He fathered eight children, living by meagre earnings as a journalist and with the support of the industrialist Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) who also was his frequent collaborator. No more than a dozen people attended his funeral, but since then his tombstone at London’s Highgate Cemetery has attracted a constant pilgrimage, including V. I. Lenin. Marx’s single most famous work is The Communist Manifesto(1848), but there are many others, including the...