Socialism: Utopian and Scientific of thousands of copies. Throughout the decade of the 1860s, Karl Marx, close personal friend and political associate of Friedrich Engels, dedicated himself to the study of economics, culminating in the publication of the first volume of "Das Kapital" in 1867. Marx's lengthy and ponderous volume was extremely difficult for the average to penetrate, however, leading Engels to suggest to Marx in a letter of September 16, 1868 that a short popularized version of "Das Kapital" for a working class audience was urgently needed. "If it is not written, some Moses or other will come along and do it and
Francis Wheen journalism. Wheen is the author of several books, including a biography of Karl Marx which won the Deutscher Memorial Prize in 1999, and has been translated into twenty languages. He followed the biography of Karl Marx with a "biography" of "Das Kapital", which follows the creation and publication of the first volume of Marx's major work as well as other incomplete volumes. Wheen had a column in "The Guardian" for several years. He writes for "Private Eye" and is currently the magazine's deputy editor. His collected journalism, "Hoo-hahs and Passing Frenzies", won him the Orwell Prize in 2003. He has