A Life of Solid Principles

A translation of the 1843 novella by Edgar Bauer, a significant if overlooked work of German literary history that casts new light on the Young Hegelian movement and, possibly, Karl Marx.

In early 1843, the Young Hegelian philosopher and activist Edgar Bauer published a comic novella titled Es leben feste Grundsätze! or A Life of Solid Principles! It told the story of an idealistic young journalist named, significantly enough, Karl. While the work was more or less ignored for one and a half centuries, recent scholarship has suggested that it may contain a fictionalized and deeply critical portrait of Karl Marx. That on its own makes it fascinating and valuable. But it is also an important piece of literary history in its own right. And it offers a powerful way into the life and career of its author—a figure who, despite an enormous amount of interest in the intellectual history of the German Vormärz in recent years, has remained conspicuously overlooked in the literature. This volume combines an original translation of Es leben feste Grundsätze! with a long essay outlining Edgar Bauer’s revolutionary political thought. Along the way, it shows how the Young Hegelian movement constituted a crucial inflection point in the history of the relationship between radical political theory, on one side, and concrete political institutions, on the other.

Edgar Bauer was a German political philosopher, writer, and activist. He was the author of many works, including Die liberalen Bestrebungen in Deutschland and Der Streit der Kritik mit Kirche und Staat. Charles Barbour is Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University. He is the author of The Marx-Machine: Politics, Polemics, Ideology and Derrida’s Secret: Perjury, Testimony, Oath.