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