Marx on Suicide

Abstract

In 1846 a journal Gesellschaftsspiegel edited by Moses Hess published a text by Karl Marx entitled Peuchet: on Suicide. It was a translation of a selected fragments from the memoirs by Jacques Peuchet, a former archive-keeper of the Paris police prefecture describing four cases of suicide together with a commentary by Peuchet on the social causes of suicide. Marx made important changes to the text of the translation regarding the original source material and also included his introductory commentary. This article analyses how Peuchet: on Suicide came to be published, its structure and content, as well as puts it in the context of other Marx’s writings of that time, especially those that dealt with the oppression of women in the bourgeois society.