Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
An inspirational heritage
MARY DAVIS recommends a classic biography of socialist and feminist pioneer Eleanor Marx
Eleanor Marx [William Collison - National Free Labour Association]

Eleanor Marx: A Biography
by Yvonne Kapp
(Verso, £21)

THIS single volume new edition of Yvonne Kapp’s biography of Eleanor Marx, first published over 40 years ago, was deservedly highly acclaimed at the time. EJ Hobsbawm praised it as “one of the few unquestionable masterpieces of 20th century biography” and Michael Foot described it as “a work of scholarship but also a work of art.”

Those accolades and many others remain as true today as when the first two volumes were published and the new edition, coming in at more than 850 pages, reveals Kapp’s meticulous scholarship, historical intelligence and sensitive insight, bounded by flawless prose, for a new readership.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
unequal
Books / 9 April 2026
9 April 2026

MARTIN GRAHAM welcomes, with reservations, a scholarly addition to the unfinished business of understanding how capital works on a world scale

satie
Books / 18 July 2025
18 July 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes an exuberant blend of emotion and analysis that captures the politics and contrarian nature of the French composer

COMPASSION: Author Banu Mushtaq, right, and translator Deepa Bhasthi with the International Booker Prize statuettes last Tuesday
Books / 27 May 2025
27 May 2025

Heart Lamp by the Indian writer Banu Mushtaq and winner of the 2025 International Booker prize is a powerful collection of stories inspired by the real suffering of women, writes HELEN VASSALLO

FELLOW TRAVELLERS: Susan Sherman and Margaret Randall in Havana, Cuba 1968 / Pic: Ovaryian/CC
Books / 25 May 2025
25 May 2025

STEVEN ANDREW is ultimately disappointed by a memoir that is far from memorable