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Rare ANS in English, signed “Karl Marx,” neatly penned on a 6 x 3.25 envelope from Gebr. Lobbecke & Co., Braunschweig, January 4, 1879. An envelope addressed in another hand to “Herrn de Rothschild Frères, Paris,” which was accidentally delivered to Karl Marx's house in London at 41 Maitland Park. Marx returns the envelope to the post, writing: "This letter has, it seems at the Brunswick Post-Office, accidentally got into a packet of newspapers sent to me from Brunswick.” In fine condition.
Karl Marx was a subscriber to the "Braunschweiger Volksfreund," a socialist newspaper printed in Braunschweig, or "Brunswick," Germany. The Braunschweiger Volksfreund was an important newspaper for the workers' movement and helped spread socialist and Marxist ideas in northern Germany. Marx used such publications to stay informed about developments within the socialist movement in Germany. Interestingly, the firm that sent the letter, Gebrüder Löbbecke & Co., was a banking house founded in the mid-19th century in response to the growing capital requirements of the start of the industrialization. That their letter, addressed to the family-controlled bank of the Rothschilds ("de Rothschild Frères"), mistakenly wound up in the possession of Karl Marx—the world's foremost critic of capitalism—is truly remarkable. A unique and historically serendipitous piece.
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