Rogue Brother, Rogue Comrade – The importance of being Dr Edward Aveling

Dr Edward Aveling  lived with Karl Marx’s daughter, Eleanor for fifteen years . He co-translating the first English edition of  das Kapital; with  with William Morris he set Socialist League in 1884 and he sat  on the first executive  of Keir Hardie’s Independent Labour Party.
Yet his unexplained role in Eleanor’s unsavoury death has made him an historical non-person, who no-one wants to talk about.

This talks looks at Deborah’s preliminary research as she embarks on the daunting task of a writing a biography of a man, who has not only been written out of history, but who  destroyed all his own papers, (as well as Eleanor’s carefully kept archive). While everyone  who knew him minimized their relationship with him, (or denied it altogether) and George Bernard Shaw quipped that “no man can be as bad as Aveling looks”, yet Deborah’s early l research  shows that he was far worse.

Talk given on December 8th 2007 at
Bishopsgate Institute
230 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 4QH