[MARX, KARL.] Marx, Carlos. El Capital. Resumido y acompanado de un estudio sobre el socialismo científico por Gabriel Deville. Half-title (mounted on stub); 3-page index at end. Small 8vo (6 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches; 170 x 110 mm), later 1/4 morocco and marbled boards, spine ruled and lettered in gilt; pages age-toned, no markings. A work of the utmost scarcity, the first Spanish edition of this translation, with no other examples appearing at auction according to Rare Book Hub. This is the most important abridged version of Marx's Capital ever to have appeared. Superior to the edition, also published in Madrid, by Dionisio de los Ríos with a translation by Zafrilla, bearing an 1886 publication date, which is generally considered to be the first Spanish translation of Das Kapital, and deemed an inferior (also abridged) version from Roy's French version. OCLC locates four copies (British Library, Bibliothèque Nationale, and two in the United States). This Spanish translation was made from the French of Gabriel Deville (1854 -1940), the French socialist theoretician, politician and diplomat, who did more than almost anyone else to raise awareness of Karl Marx's theories of the weaknesses of capitalism, most effectively through the present work, which came to have a profound influence upon the spreading of Marxist thought throughout the Spanish speaking world. "The epitome, here translated, was published in Paris, in 1883, by Gabriel Deville, possibly the most brilliant writer among the French Marxians. It is the most successful attempt yet made to popularize Marx's scientific economics" (Robert Reeves La Monte, Introductory Note to the 1899 English translation). The Spanish translator of the work is Antonio Atienza, a typographer and translator at the press of Ricardo Fé, who in 1886 volunteered his work at the newly founded "El Socialista," the Spanish flagship publication of Marxist socialism. It was also in 1886 that Atienza translated the present work, with the publication following in 1887. This translation happened almost simultaneously with the problematic translation by Zafrilla, which appeared in weekly installments in the rival newspaper "La Républica." Madrid: Ricardo Fé, 1887