''Scorpion and Felix, A Humoristic Novel'' (german: Skorpion und Felix, Humoristischer Roman) is the only

comedic Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

fictional story to have been written by

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

. Written in 1837 when he was 19 years old, it has remained unpublished.Francis Wheen, ''Karl Marx''. London: Fourth Estate, 1999; pp. 25–26. It was likely written under the influence of ''

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', also known as ''Tristram Shandy'', is a novel by Laurence Sterne, inspired by ''Don Quixote''. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others followin ...

'' by

Laurence Sterne Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768), was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' and ''A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'', published ...

Description

The novel is told by a first-person narrator in the present tense. The plot revolves around three main characters, Felix, Scorpion, and Merten, and their quest to uncover their origins. The novel seems to take an

ironic Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique. Irony can be categorized into ...

polemic with

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

.Anna Kornbluh
On Marx’s Victorian Novel
Mediations. Journal of the Marxist Literary Group. Mediations: Journal of the Marxist Literary GroupVolume 25, No. 1. Fall 2010 It has also been described as

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

. The surviving fragments of the book's manuscript have not been well regarded.

Francis Wheen Francis James Baird Wheen (born 22 January 1957) is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster. Early life and education Wheen was born into an army familyNicholas Wro"A life in writing" ''The Guardian'', 29 August 2009 and educated at two ind ...

in his biography of Marx characterizes the work as "a nonsensical torrent of whimsy and

persiflage This is a list of idioms that were recognizable to literate people in the late-19th century, and have become unfamiliar since. As the article list of idioms in the English language notes, a list of idioms can be useful, since the meaning of an id ...

" which was "dashed off in a fit of intoxicated whimsy," although he notes that a paragraph from that novel appears in a slightly changed form as a "famous opening paragraph" in ''

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte ''The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon'' (german: italic=yes, Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Napoleon) is an essay written by Karl Marx between December 1851 and March 1852, and originally published in 1852 in ''Die Revolution'', a German mo ...

''.

Siegbert Salomon Prawer Siegbert Salomon Prawer (15 February 1925 – 5 April 2012) was Taylor Professor of the German Language and Literature at the University of Oxford. Life and works Prawer was born on 15 February 1925 in Cologne, Germany, to Jewish parents Mar ...

noted that the book is notable for being Marx's first attempt to discuss

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

, and that it begins his polemic with

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...

. Anna Kornbluh, however, argued that the piece is a polemic with Locke,

Fichte Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kan ...

, and

Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemolo ...

, but not Hegel. She also commented more positively on the novel, concluding that it shows how even a young Marx "pursued logico-formal connections behind the veil of the visible, how thoroughly he tracked different forms of appearance of the real within ontologically positive reality". The novel was never finished. Only some chapters of the novel survive to the modern day. Parts of the novel could have been burned by Marx himself, along with some other early works of his. The parts that survive are those fragments that Marx included as a supplement when he published his ''Book of Verse'' (1837). The surviving fragments of Marx's novel were published in English for the first time in 1975 as part of Volume 1 of ''

Marx-Engels Collected Works ''Marx/Engels Collected Works'' (also known as ''MECW'') is the largest existing collection of English translations of works by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Its 50 volumes contain publications by Marx and Engels released during their lifetimes ...

.''"Supplementary to Dedicated Verses: Some Chapters from ''Scorpion and Felix: A Humoristic Novel,"'' in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ''Marx-Engels Collected Works: Volume 1: Marx, 1835-1843.'' New York: International Publishers, 1975; pp. 616-632.

Footnotes

External links

Selection from the novel at Marxists Internet Archive
1837 novels Books by Karl Marx Unpublished novels Unfinished novels German comedy novels 19th-century German novels German satirical novels Literary duos Male characters in literature Comedy literature characters {{satirical-novel-stub