Eleanor Marx: A Life

by Rachel Holmes

Unrestrained by convention, lion-hearted and free, Eleanor Marx (1855-98) was an exceptional woman. Hers was the first English translation of Flaubert's Mme Bovary. She pioneered the theatre of Henrik Ibsen. She was the first woman to lead the British dock workers' and gas workers' trades unions. For years she worked tirelessly for her father, Karl Marx, as personal secretary and researcher. Later she edited many of his key political works, and laid the foundations for his biography. But foremost among her achievements was her pioneering feminism. For her, sexual equality was a necessary precondition for a just society.

Drawing strength from her family and their wide circle, including Friedrich Engels and Wilhelm Liebknecht, Eleanor Marx set out into the world to make a difference - her favourite motto: 'Go ahead!' With her closest friends - among them, Olive Schreiner, Havelock Ellis, George Bernard Shaw, Will Thorne and William Morris - she was at the epicentre of British socialism. She was also the only Marx to claim her Jewishness. But her life contained a deep sadness: she loved a faithless and dishonest man, the academic, actor and would-be playwright Edward Aveling. Yet despite the unhappiness he brought her, Eleanor Marx never wavered in her political life, ceaselessly campaigning and organising until her untimely end, which - with its letters, legacies, secrets and hidden paternity - reads in part like a novel by Wilkie Collins, and in part like the modern tragedy it was.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Feminism, Biography Memoir, Politics, Womens

528 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Rachel Holmes’ new book, Eleanor Marx: A Life is published by Bloomsbury on 8 May 2014, described by Golden PEN Award winner Gillian Slovo as “a dazzling account of a woman and her family, an age and a movement, that grips from the first page to the last.”

Holmes is also the author of The Hottentot Venus: The life and death of Saartjie Baartman (Bloomsbury) and The Secret Life of Dr James Barry (Viking & Tempus Books). Last year Rachel co-edited, with Lisa Appignanesi and Susie Orbach, the much-discussed Fifty Shades of Feminism (Virago). She was co-commissioning editor of Sixty Six Books: 21st Century Writers Speak to the King James Bible (Oberon, 2011) with Josie Rourke and Chris Haydon. Holmes is curator of the new Impossible Conversations talks series at the Donmar Warehouse in London.

In 2010 she received an Arts Council cultural leadership award as one of Britain’s Fifty Women to Watch. Rachel Holmes has worked with and for British Council literature festivals and international programmes since 2000.

Reviews

[Malcolm · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should perhaps be subtitled The Wonderful, Tragic Life of Tussy Marx. Eleanor (Tussy), the youngest daughter Karl and Jenny, has shamefully been too long written out of orthodox Marxist parties’ patriarchal story of the growth of their outlook and basis of struggle. There is little doubt that she was smart, brilliant, energetic and the activist that few others in her family were or considered taking up. Her 43 years covered some of the most important events and moments in British history – the growth of the mass organised labour movement, the challenge to the dominance of élite craft workers in British trade unionism, the mass action of dockers, of gas workers, of railway workers and others; much of this action she played a significant and often leading role in. She translated her father’s work and that of Engels, did large sections of the research that underpinned Capital and acted as one of Britain’s leading advocates for Marxism.

But she was also an aspiring actor, and early translator (and big fan) of Ibsen and provided what was for many years the standard English translation of Madam Bovary, active in feminist politics and close to some of the leading feminists of the late 19th century and an early influence on a 13 year old Sylvia Pankhurst; she was, like many intellectuals of her era, a polymath. She is also the author of the first biographical work about Marx on which nearly all subsequent biographers have, in part, drawn and relied. The tragedy of Tussy’s life is that in so much of her adult personal life she seems as if she is a mixture of both Nora Helmer (of The Doll’s House) and Emma Bovary.

Yet in most of these things she appears as a footnote to the men she worked with: Marx & Engels, Will Thorne of the Gas Workers’ Union, Wilhelm Liebknecht (of the German SDP), Paul Lafarge (of the French Workers Party and her brother in law) and most shamefully for Marxist parties of various persuasions Edward Aveling, her husband in all but ceremony. Aveling quite properly appears as the villain of the piece – in this at least orthodox Marxism-Leninism has it right – as exploiting her, claiming her status as his and as in nearly every way responsible for her demise. But not far behind him is the powerplay of the German SDP (Bebel, Adler & Singer) who installed the former Louise Kautsky in Engels’ house in a substantially successful effort to secure control over the Marx-Engels archive. It suggests the degree of conflict and complicity in orthodox Marxism-Leninism in the footnoting of Tussy that one of the two versions of Volume One of Capital (the official Soviet English language edition) on my bookcase is shown as translated by Edward Aveling and Samuel Moore, when all the evidence (not only from this book) tells us that the correct distribution of labour would list the translators as Eleanor Marx, Edward Aveling and Samuel Moore.

Holme’s great success in this biography is manifold, and turns on four principal axes. First, she has restored Eleanor to the centre of her own story (this is the third full length biography in English, and first since the early 1970s) and in doing so granted her the agency dominant narratives deny. Second, in placing a feminist woman at the centre of a history of late 19th century British and international socialism disrupted both the dominance of orthodox Marxism’s labourist/patriarchal narrative and that of mainstream labour history that fetishizes the industrial working man over the much more nuanced and rich labour history of production and reproduction that sees working women (and to a lesser extent children) in industrial workforce not as victims to be protected but as workers in struggle. Third, in highlighting the Marx family’s rich cultural life and drawing out a child’s vision of that family she has restored culture, joy and freedom (part of what the French Marxist Henri Lefebvre calls disalienation) to a socialist vision and practice. Finally, in taking us into the rich life of Eleanor the writer, translator, pragmatist in a world of realpolitik and propagandist Holmes has rebalanced late 19th century British socialism as not just a war of egos between various forms of nativistic, often nationalistic socialism, in contest with itself and anarchism as much as it was with capital and the labour aristocracy (as the élite craft workers were often labelled).

This is not, however, a hagiography. Eleanor is certainly a dynamic and engaging woman but she is also obsessive, short sighted in some of her key personal relations, suffers from a close-to-sanctification of her father and suffers many of the traumas, distresses and unhappiness of Victorian women. She appears, in her late teens and early twenties, to be anorexic; her empathy means she seldom cares for herself; she makes a series foolish choices in lovers (Aveling being by far the worst – an insecure, egotistic liar – who she repeatedly choses over friends and family) and remains blinded by what seems to be a desperate search for the return to halcyon, romanticised days of her childhood relationship with her idolised father. But she was also intensely loyal to the extended family, including those associated with Engels, as well as to her friends even when they stayed away out of their dislike for Aveling.

Holmes has a light hand in complex issues, not only of the domestic relations of extended Marx-Engels family but also the political and economic analyses emerging from that family, the political contests with British and European socialism and the broader political left. As with any really good biography, we learn as much about the context of the life and its subject; in this case we have an impressive history of late 19th century British socialism (that I hope many of the subject area’s scholars and activists read having shaken off their dogmatism), a sharp exposition on Marxist and related socialist theory and practice and a rethinking of the ways feminist politics developed well beyond the suffrage movement.

This excellent piece adds greatly to our histories of European socialism and Marxism. It sits alongside essential English language biographies of women such as Alexandra Kollontai and Rosa Luxemburg as vital to understand the rich interplay between feminist politics and socialism: now, if only we could have similar quality work done about Clara Zetkin and Sylvia Pankhurst we’d have most of the leading women socialists of the pre-WW1 era (or in Pankhurt's case the 1920s as well). It is also a really good read, well-paced and just enough quirky snippets (such as the Marx family connection to the Phillips radio and light bulb empire) to keep us entertained as well as informed and engaged.

It comes with the highest recommendation.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eleanor Marx carried on her father's work while living as liberated a life as any woman could for her time. It appears that she followed her heart, a heart too generous to understand that not all other hearts are honest. Author, Rachel Holmes tells the full story.

Holmes begins the narrative with "Tussy's" (Eleanor's) unusual childhood in England. Her parents, Karl and Jenny are political exiles who live with a "servant" Lenchen who was an adopted sister to Jenny. (The two girls are said to look alike, but this is not developed.) Frederik Engels, also from their area of Germany moved to England for family business. They become an extended family. Engels has wealth and basically supports the Marx family.

Marx, who has buried two sons, is close to his intellectual and compassionate daughter. She does his research and copies his illegible handwriting. He declares "Tussy is me." While he is never sexist towards her, he thwarts her young emotional life. She becomes anorexic. For more on the Marx family, I recommend the National Book Award nominated Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution by Mary Gabriel.

After her parents' deaths, Tussy led life dizzying life of theater, translation, research and labor organizing. She took up her father's mantle and along with other "radicals" advocated what we take for granted today: the 8 hour work day, public education, male and female suffrage and a lot more. She was a strong advocate for women's rights. She wrote articles, speeches and her father's biography, translated books, prepared her father's works for printing and created research files, all without a typewriter until 1889 and without electricity until 1895. A huge amount of organizing (the International, gas workers, glass workers, bakers, match makers and more) went on without a phone.

She traveled, not only as a popular speaker, but on her own. She maintained close friendships and (unlike her father) related to her Jewish roots. She made a bad choice in living with Edward Aveling a director, actor and theater critic. (Engels similarly made a bad choice in letting Louise Kautsky Freyberger into his life. I look forward to a biographer tracking this relationship.)

Holmes is skillful in showing how "Tussy's"/Eleanor's whole life is the foreshadowing for two events that will surprise readers (fiction-style) that don't know them. One illustrates the extraordinarily friendship of her parents, Frederick Engels and Helen Demuth, the other shows Tussy's emotional overload.

While at times there is more information that the reader can absorb, this is an excellent book. You come to see Eleanor Marx's unusually neglected role in labor history. She is at the center of most organizing at the time and a noted speaker throughout Europe and the US.

The ending, not only by nature of the story, but also the skill of the author is very powerful.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning, moving and exemplary. Holmes has done the quintessential marxist task of locating the actions and thoughts of the individual actor within their material history. That Eleanor's The Woman Question is not by default mentioned among the rest of the marxist canon is neglectful in the extreme.

Eleanor Marx brings to life the struggles of the Marx household in dire poverty, revolutionary theatres, theoretical spurts and human frailty. Like any good political biography, it makes the reader understand the laws of societal development by imbuing it with life and empathy. Eleanor (or, rather, Tussy), the one Marx daughter to dodge the trap of settling down by the hearth with children and a husband (who themselves, of course, are not shackled to the confines of domesticity), was an almost universal character in her own right, and by no means simply "daughter of". She possessed a labouriously acquired talent for economics and theatre, an inexhaustible supply of energy and - most importantly - an unerring devotion to organising for the shortening of the era of exploitation. She juggled between an intense private life and constant travelling, speeching and letter-writing. Through all this, she hewed out a space for a marxist feminism that was entirely her own - Marx had written little on the subject, Engels might have done more of it (assisted in the writing of The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State by Eleanor), but the practical and modern-day implications were all hers to develop. Under her leadership, major trade unions grew exponentially; significantly, she established within them Women's Unions and thus forced into being a movement that strove for better rights for workers regardless of sex. She even defeated the chauvinist trade union leadership that was initially unwilling to allow jewish trade unions.

It's 450 pages, but it doesn't feel like it - I devoured the entire thing in about four sessions.

[AK · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was recently at a panel of some Marxist men talking about Marxism, and one of them would not stop talking in a kind of scornful way about biography. He sat with his hands interlocked upon his belly and tapped his index fingers together as he pontificated how biography, in its messiness, its particularity, its use of emotion and narrative, gets in the way of the purity of theory, of which we need lots of, apparently, pure clear geometric theory, in order to understand the structures of capitalism. Perhaps then, after we have nicely graphed capitalism on the Cartesian plane, can we locate a little gap in the system where we can go in and blow it all up. I'm not totally adverse to this sort of Death Star approach to understanding capitalism- re-creating the schematics in minute detail to ostensibly find the fatal flaw- but how effectively do we fight the system when we forever ignore the people it destroys? What is a Marxism that requires several advanced degrees to parse?

Anyways, I wanted to throw this book at the guy. Both because it is large, and because I think that, while everyone should read it, it is that good, Marxist Men in permanently stuck in AbstractionLand really especially need to read it. In this biography of Tussy, her messiness, her particularity, her emotion, and her commitment, we find the living breathing heart of anti-capitalism- concern for the well-being of all the people we share the world with. I was in tears at the end.

Superlative book. If anyone knows where Freddie Demuth is buried, please comment, I will go to England to bring flowers to his grave.

[Karyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A enlightening and at times entertaining look at a family that I knew very little about until I read this book. Eleanor has earned more attention than she has received and you might not be able to convince me that she took her own life. Look no farther than that husband of hers. The book could have been tightened up some and I found myself drifting on occasion, which is not a good sign. It would be better ranked at 3.5 than the full 4, but there you go.

[Hosen]

همیشه دیدن تاریخ از نگاه پرسپکتیوهای گمشده برام جالب بوده؛ الان دیگه اینقدر در مورد ورود فروغ به زندگی ابراهیم گلستان و همسرش (فخری) بحث شده که نمیشه فخری رو یک شخصیت گم‌شده دونست؛ اما پسر فروغ، علی، می‌تونه نمونه‌ای از این پرسکتیوهای مطرود به حساب بیاد؛ علی احیانا توی همین روزها و سال‌هایی که ما شعر علی کوچیکه رو می‌خوندیم توی پارکهای تهران ولگردی می‌کرد.
نظرگاه فرزندان مارکس هم می‌تونه از جملۀ این نگاه‌های فراموش‌شده باشه؛ چه فرزندانی که به دلیل فقر و بیماری در کودکی مردند؛ چه دخترش النور که بعد از خیانت همسری که زندگیش رو به پاش ریخته بود خودکشی کرد و چه فردریک، پسرِ به زعمِ مورخان نامشروع مارکس.
گویا سرنوشت فرزندان مارکس از سرنوشت فرزند معنوی‌ش، مارکسیسم، کمتر تراژیک نبوده.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply brilliant from start to finish: not just informative but inspirational.

Eleanor "Tussy" Marx was the youngest daughter of Karl. As you'll discover when reading this, she was also the executor of his literary estate and hence a large reason why Marx's work became a legacy rather than a historical footnote.

She also put into practice much of her father's theory, embodying her own beliefs - in all but, tragically, her relationships with lovers. Marx and Engels' relationships with their wives and lovers colour the first half of Tussy's life, and her own with Edward Aveling colours the second.

Throughout both halves, of course, there's a detailed account of her role in educating working class leaders such as Will Thorne, her work with the poor women of the East End, her development as an orator and how she traveled Europe and America to try and ensure solidarity amongst all socialists, helping make socialism into a legitimate political philosophy rather than one dominated by anarchists and self-servers.

What I find most heartbreakingly inspiring about Tussy is what Holmes makes clear early on in this book: that she knew that she would not see many of her visions for a just society come true within her own lifetime but fought on regardless, confident that this would mean the world would eventually become a fairer one for others. She dedicated her own life, and sacrificed a lot of happiness in the process, to something she knew she would only see the beginnings of. That's both an immensely sad and immensely wonderful choice to make, one taken by only a handful of people who the rest of us end up owing so much to.

With that in mind, it's astounding Tussy's story isn't known by more people, especially those on the Left. Read it, read it, read it.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review originally appeared on the Historical Novel Society website.

There are some people whose lives intersect during an era in which great changes occur; there are others who are instrumental in ensuring that those changes happen. Eleanor Marx, Karl Marx’s youngest daughter, was both. The background to “Tussy’s” childhood and young adulthood were the writing of Marx’s masterwork, Das Kapital, and Tussy – polyglot, largely homeschooled and described by her mother as political from head to toe – not only absorbed socialism in its broadest and most international sense, but expanded on it and saw to its practical application after her father’s death.

Holmes’s lucidly written biography of a woman whose role in the arenas of social justice and feminism is not nearly well enough appreciated held me spellbound from beginning to end. Through Eleanor’s life, Holmes paints a fascinating, extensive picture of late Victorian life in England and America and continental Europe that could easily serve as a reference point for further exploration, and yet is detailed enough to satisfy the general reader. I had one small issue – I’m not sure if the year of publisher Henry Vizetelly’s death is given correctly – but that’s a minor point given the sheer scope of the work. Highly recommended both as a historical reference ‘keeper’ and as a good read.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Jan Vranken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rachel Holmes haalt Eleanor Marx weg uit de voetnoten waarin ze meestal wordt weggemoffeld en zet haar waar ze thuishoort: in het verhaal van Marx en zijn geschriften. Het is duidelijk dat veel minder van vader Karl te lezen zou zijn (of van een mindere kwaliteit) zonder het werk van dochter Tussy. Een leuke anecdote: vader vertaalde stukken uit Engelse inspectierapporten naar het Duits voor Das Kapital en voor de Engelse versie vertaalde zij die terug naar het Engels om ze daarna te checken aan de oorspronkelijke tekst. Voor de rest: een ontzettend getalenteerde en indrukwekkende vrouw die op vele gebieden actief en innoverend was (vrouwenrechten, socialisme, literatuur, theater, …). Ik sluit me graag aan bij de uitvoerige vijfsterrenrecensies.

[Micebyliz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every time i read a book from this time period it amazes me how many people of note knew so many other people of note. Did everyone really know everyone else? was it that small a world?
I didn't know the Marx family had so much tragedy but then i think most families did at that time since there was no such thing as modern medicine.
I had some trouble reading this book because the prose did not flow. It seemed choppy, and perhaps the main reason i got lost too was because there was constant switching between nicknames and given names. I couldn't remember who everyone was. I began by going back a few pages to check and then didn't bother because i was so far ahead i couldn't find the original explanation and i was annoyed.
I didn't know where all the locations were either, and there was no reference guide for the reader. I read reviews and they're all glowing. I can't be the only one who had trouble reading this?
I wanted to understand the material but it was tough going.

[Sally Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb book. Holmes brings to life a vivid picture of the home life and personalities of the main characters in the Marx family. Eleanor is shown to be a force of energy and intelligence committed to putting into reality her fathers legacy. The excitement and momentous events of the Paris Commune are as skillfully portrayed as the small quirky childhood details such as Eleanor smoking and drinking freely by the age of 13. Holmes provides a human portrait of Marx himself as a loving father and of Engels a man able to offer friendship, support and intellect. But of course the central character is the irrepressible Eleanor. An inspiration to all. The final pages of the book had me holding my breath in dread even though i was already aware of the tragic end.

[Stephen Goldenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating biography. It gives due recognition to one of the many women whose contributions to history have been largely invisible. As an added bonus, it's a comprehensive and entertaining account of the Marx family, and especially Karl himself, and their circle as well as a detailed history of socialist and trades union struggles in the latter half of the 19th century.

[Ilze · Rating 4 out of 5]

Echt een fantastisch boek, zeker als je bij de vakbond werkt. Ook wel trots dat ik het heb uitgelezen, want het was nogal een pil, en soms lastig te volgen. Maar bovenal als zij onnavolgbaar, haar privé en werk. Het laatste gedeelte van het nawoord vat het voor mij heel goed samen. Ze is een voorbeeld die we niet mogen vergeten en we moeten ons blijven inzetten voor haar strijd.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful! Such an interesting subject and so well-written.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

radio bbc

Rachel Holmes's new book is the lively, engaging and informative life story of the daughter of Karl Marx. Beginning with Eleanor's upbringing in a happy and creative household - where she enjoyed the company of her parent's friends including Engels - and moving on to tell of her achievements as a feminist, and activist and also her troubled love life.

Her achievements are remarkable, she was instrumental in preserving her father's memory by sorting through his letters and laying the foundations for his biography. She was a pioneering feminist who made as profound a contribution to British political thought as Mary Wollstonecraft.

Her personal life was turned upside down by a family secret and a lover. She adored the socialist campaigner and would be playwright Edward Aveling, but he was a cheat and and broke her heart in a series of humiliations.

Rachel Holmes is the author of The Secret Life of Dr James Barry and The Hottentot Venus: The Life and Death of Saartjie Baartman. She is the co-editor, with Lisa Appignanesi and Susie Orbach, of Fifty Shades of Feminism.

Read by Tracy-Ann Oberman who is perhaps best known for playing Chrissie Watts in Eastenders for two years. Radio 4 audiences have regularly enjoyed her performances in comedy and drama, and more recently she has written dramas for the network.
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson.
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.

Episode 1: Beginning with Eleanor's upbringing in a happy and creative household where she enjoyed the company of her parent's friends including Engels.

Episode 2: It is 1871 and the Paris Commune is underway. Eleanor and her sisters are caught up in the bloody events. Later, a bid for independent living is hampered by the strictures and social mores of the day.

Episode 3: Today, it is the 1880s and Eleanor falls in love and makes a difficult choice.

Episode 4: Eleanor's campaigns for equality are making inroads. Later, an unexpected revelation turns her world upside down and leaves her profoundly shaken.

Episode 5: Today, the poignant conclusion finds Eleanor betrayed and humiliated by the man she loves.

[nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

eu tenho tanta coisa pra falar sobre esse livro mas nenhuma estabilidade ou distanciamento suficientes pra produzir algo coerente. mas aqui vai. só consigo pensar no fato de que a eleanor foi em prática toda a teoria que o pai dela elaborou e que a vida dela é um exemplo primoroso de agitação e articulação e do que de fato dá pra fazer quando engajada em uma causa AO MESMO TEMPO que não consigo conter minha revolta pelo fato de ela ter sido essa mulher e ter contribuído dessa forma para os movimentos sociais e ainda assim ter terminado vítima desse mesmo sistema que ela tanto lutou contra. e essa síntese é tão pobre quando a gente realmente toma consciência de tudo o que ela viveu com aquele patife odioso mas com quem ela continuou porque em um primeiro momento parecia dos males o menor. e no final não foi. tipo o relacionamento que ela escolheu pra ter a vida que ela queria (e de fato conseguiu) ter também foi o motivo de ela ter tido a morte que ela acabou tendo. mas enquanto penso nisso também não consigo deixar de me dizer que não deveria lembrar tanto da morte dela porque esse foi um momento tão pequeno pra toda a vida gigante que ela teve. só que é difícil

[Phil Brett · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could have done, I would have given this book more than five stars. A fantastic read which reclaims Eleanor Marx from being merely Karl's daughter.

A major figure in her own right, she fought for workers' and women's rights and was a significant figure in the socialist movement of the 1880s. But even that isn't all, being an accomplished translator and amateur actress amongst other things as well. Included is a whole host of major Victorian figures who appear in her life. Add to this a complicated and tortuous personal life and you cannot fail but to find this is interesting.

Written in an assessable and very readable way it sometimes reads like a novel. But its not fiction: its the reclaiming of a significant life, which, with many of the things that she fought for coming under attack, is relevant today.

See also https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

[Tracey Agnew · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book! Written in such an engaging way, you can't help but fall in love with Tussy - a hero of her own age and a much neglected feminist and socialist icon of our age. This book is a stunningly readable historical, economic, feminist and socialist history with a gothic Victorian heroine who is undone by the love of her faithless, money grabbing 'husband'. I had learned about Karl Marx in history and sociology, but had never heard of Eleanor. Her life is so much part of the development of the British Labour Party that I am astounded that she does not feature in mainstream history education. Rachel Holmes has done a wonderful job of bringing the Marx household to life - the book often reads like a novel; but a quick look at the notes shows what a well researched piece of non-fiction this book is

An absolute must read!

[Bookthesp1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rachel Holmes has written an extraordinary and unforgettable book about "Tussy" aka Eleanor Marx who became a phenomenon in her own right, escaping the shadow of family ties and her father, Karl...Eleanor not only became a central figure in what counted for a left wing establishment, championing union rights and the growth of what became the Labour Party but also did much to preserve her fathers memory and his voluminous writings. A feminist icon she was brought down by a man- namely the reptilian Edward Aveling, freeloader, freebooter and a man so dishonest and so un self aware he would probably be a top politician or banker these days. His singular infidelity and marriage to another woman drove Tussy to a tragic suicide. The barebones in this review of a heartfelt tale told with love, verve and brio by Holmes who achieves a real mastery of her material. Highly recommended.

[Rob Manwaring · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bought a copy in Sydney, in the rather fine Glebe bookshop. This was a brilliant read, and frankly read more like a Victorian novel than a biography. Holmes goes a very long way in restoring Tussy's seminal place in British socialist and feminist history; Eleanor's achievements are just mind-blowing. That said, at times, too much like a hagiography, but that's worth over-looking. As for her death, Holmes makes a good case for her reading of what happened, but its risks being one-eyed. I loved this book, but more than that I was inspired by the woman.

[Titus Hjelm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant, sympathetic account. Although thin on Marx, Engels and Marxism (even Eleanor's version of it), the author really does up on her work on women's rights and, especially the mistreatment of 'Tussy' in the hands of the bastard Edward Aveling. One or two tiny slips (Marx the father did not go to Berlin to study with Hegel, who had been feeding earthworms for a while already), but all in all well researched and written.

[Ali Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely inspiring. We have so much to be thankful to her for. The 8 hour day, end to child labour, universal suffrage and education, equal employment rights for women. Brilliantly written book too.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

In-depth, well-written biography of Karl Marx's daughter. The author skilfully conducts us among the various movements and people. The only thing I would change is to enlarge some of the otherwise excellent illustrations.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week:
Lively biography of Karl Marx's daughter, who dedicated her life to the principle of equality. Read by Tracy-Ann Oberman.

[Jim Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Jim Cook’s review)
The British moral philosopher Bernard Williams said somewhere that we are all under the influence of thinkers we do not read. The life and work of Eleanor Marx is an interesting example of that dictum.

Eleanor, Karl Marx’s youngest daughter, was born in 1855 and died 43 years later under circumstances that remain mysterious (was her death a murder or a suicide?).

One paragraph about mid-way through Holmes’ 508 page book provides a good sense of this woman’s accomplishments. At this time she was only 30 years of age: “Within the twelve months between the summer of 1885 and 1886 Tussy [Eleanor Marx] started and finished the first English translation of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary; revised a new edition of Lissagaray’s History of the Paris Commune; put on the first performance of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in England; championed the programming of art and education in the Socialist League; produced a body of journalistic work on prostitution and sex slavery; became a ghostwriter and finally completed the English translation of the first volume of Capital with Samuel Moore, Engels, Aveling, Lafargue and Longueuil. If this were not sufficient, she and Edward [Aveling] completed and published ‘The Woman Question: From a Socialist Point of View.’”

One of the benefits of reading this book is its vivid portrayal of the struggles of working class people at the time and the huge role played by Marxists like Eleanor Marx in British labour history. The book also relates the adventures of Karl Marx’s Nachlass (unpublished manuscripts) after his death.

The book has two sets of photographic prints from the era but I wish the author had included pictures of Eduard Bernstein and of Marx’s armchair. Bernstein, because he had an important role to play in many of the events the book describes and the chair because it represents an interesting story in itself. Karl Marx sat in this chair (when he was not in the Reading Room of the British Museum) when he read, studied or wrote at home. It was also where he was found sitting when he died. The chair then went to Engels who kept it until his death. Engels first work after Marx’s death (The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State) was published the year following Marx’s death in 1883 and Engels almost certainly sat in Marx’s armchair while composing his book.

The armchair then went to Eleanor when Engels died and she sat in it in her “den” where she wrote several pamphlets and her voluminous correspondence.

The armchair remained in the Marx family until 2014 when it was acquired by the Karl Marx House Museum in Trier, Germany, Marx’s place of birth. You can see a picture of the armchair if you search for it on the Internet.

I feel bound to identify one “blooper” in Holmes biography, on p. 32, where she discusses Karl Marx’s time as a university student and his transfer from the University of Bonn to the University of Berlin, where he completed his doctorate. Marx’s first courses at Berlin began in October 1836. Holmes has this to say about his move to Berlin: “He [Marx] persuaded his father that Berlin was the best place for legal studies, but in truth it was a ruse for him to follow his desire to be taught by one of Germany’s most contentious philosophers, Georg Hegel, who earned his living as a professor at the university to support his philosophizing.” Apart from this rather odd description of Hegel, Holmes fails to mention that Hegel had actually died five years previously in November 1831 during a cholera outbreak (although it’s still not known if that was what killed the eminent professor).

This is a very readable and interesting biography. The author’s great passion for her subject is evident on every page. The book also has an excellent Index. Highly recommended!

[James Elder · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't heard of Eleanor Marx (youngest daughter of Karl) until a friend bought this for me for my birthday. I blame myself for that, but it is striking that such an important figure is not better known.

Eleanor (or Tussy as she was known to family and friends) was a socialist, feminist and internationalist; a vital figure in trade unionism and radical politics who, from her home base in London, had an influence across the world. She was a key organiser of successful strikes in the 1880s which helped to make the 8 hour working day a reality. She made the first English translations of Madame Bovary and was an early promoter of Ibsen's work in Britain. She made incisive contributions to our understanding of the relationship between sexual and class inequality. She helped numerous working men and women improve their literacy and knowledge. And she was a friend and collaborator of the likes of George Bernard Shaw, Frederick Furnivall, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, William Morris and numerous others.

Rachel Holmes's biography is thoroughly researched and beautifully readable. It is by turns fascinating, hilarious, inspiring and heartbreaking. Tussy's personality shines from the pages, and the reader also comes to love her extended family: her father Mohr (Karl), mother Jenny, surrogate father Friedrich Engels, surrogate mother Lenchen Demuth, sisters Jennychen and Laura, Engels' companions the Burns sisters, 'Library' Liebknecht and many others.

It's a glimpse at a rarely-viewed aspect of late-Victorian London, of agitators, organisers and idealists - and an inspiration for the challenges that face us now. Recommended without hesitation.

[Shalini · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is another excellent biography by Rachel Holmes, written from a much needed feminist perspective offering more insight into Victorian London, and indeed Europe of that time. Holmes points out to the importance of internationalism and including men in feminism while describing the contradictions of the life of politician, thinker, feminist and activist Eleanor Marx. As she sums it up, "To live with Eleanor for a while is to have the opportunity to remember how we got here, where the democratic liberties we enjoy come from. And at what price we let them go". The afterword as is as powerful as the book, as we delete our historic memories and recreate an economic underclass in these days of global commodity capitalism. This was recommended by Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty in a Radio4's A Good Read 2014 edition.

[Amanda Rosso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely well written and enjoyable, thoroughly political and researched. Eleanor Marx's life was truly remarkable and Rachel Holmes really investigates the times and places of her tragic and revolutionary path.

If one can find a little flaw in this majestic biography, it's the depiction of Eleanor's personal relationships with the women in her life and her political work. In spite of its feminist intent, the biography highlights much more decisively her relationships with the men in her life, not only their contributions to her upbringing and political path - to be fair, Holmes often mentions Tussy's mother's and Lenchen's roles in carrying out all the reproductive work in the house that allowed Marx and Engels to do the political work they did -, and yet it's Eleanor's relationship with the men around her that comes out more strongly and well developed amongst all her loved ones.

[Guy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed it until page 32, which reads “Conscription avoided, Marx transferred to study law… to be taught by one of Germany's most contentious philosophers, George Hegel…”

I am afraid dear Hegel stopped teaching in 1931; not merely quit his position but died. So, i wonder if Marx went to school at his prime Bar-Mitzva days or what happened here.

Any way, this really took the air out of reading a biography, missing on such an important and basic detail, as I do not have the talent or knowledge to check other details.

Well, do send me a new edition when this is corrected.