Translating the Manifesto into English; Nineteenth Century Communication, Twentieth Century Confusion

TLDR: The authors translated the German of Marx and Engels into English by translating the first part of the first volume of the book into English, with the help of a translator, Sam Moore, who was trained as a writer in both languages.

Abstract: “It is dreadfully hard to translate the Mun;festo [...I,” wrote Frederick Engels to his friend, Frederick Sorge, in 1883. Rendering the German of Marx and Engels “into literary, grammatical English [...I requires training as a writer in both languages, and training not merely in the daily press” (Marx and Engels, 1953. p. 140). In another leuer to Sorge four yean later, Engels claimed that “[o]nly one man can do that, Sam Moore, and he is working on it now; I already have the first section in 111s’’ (Man and Engels, 1953, p. 176). Indeed, Engels so respected Moore’s ability that on at least one occasion he referred to him as “the best translator I know [...I” (Briefe, 1906, p. 292). It was Samuel Moore, after all, who Engels, as early as 1867, decided would translate Dnr Kap i td (Ilyichov, et al.. 1974, p. 356). And it was Moore who, in 1884, began the formidable task that came to fruition in January 1887 when the English translation of volume one appeared