This collection gathers the correspondence of Karl Marx’s three surviving daughters—Jenny Longuet, Laura Lafargue and Eleanor Marx—alongside letters exchanged with their parents, siblings, husbands and political comrades.

The result is an unusually intimate record of a family generally flattened into intellectual history: illness, poverty, childcare, marriages, grief and household logistics coexist with revolution, exile and the organisation of the international socialist movement.

This isn't just Marxism seen from the domestic margins, but the political lives of three formidable women in their own right. Jenny became a journalist and activist; Laura worked closely with the French socialist movement; and Eleanor became a major organiser, translator and advocate for working women. Their letters expose how ideas are carried by families, friendships and unpaid labour—the supposedly private machinery behind public history.

Penguin paperback, 1984. First Penguin edition. Moderate rubbing, edgewear and creasing to covers; pages clean and binding sound.