A signed first edition of Karl Marx's iconic book "Das Kapital" will be up for auction at Bonhams Auction House on June 15. The rare first edition of the book in German is signed to Johann Georg Eccarius and is estimated to fetch as much as $177,000. The book was signed on Sept. 18, 1867, just four days after "Das Kapital" was published in Germany. Eccarius was a tailor and member of League of the Just, a communist union, and a very dear friend of Marx until he wasn't. It is believed Marx and Eccarius met in 1847, and although Marx described him earlier as one of "my oldest friends and adherents," their friendship turned into hatred after both Marx and Eccarius accused each other of snitching to the police. Marx later referred to Eccarius as "a scoundrel pure and simple." Despite the tension between them, Eccarius and his family kept the copy of the book until now. Simon Roberts, a book expert for Bonhams Auction House, told the press only two signed "Das Kapital" copies have been discovered so far, and characterized the auction as "a breathtaking copy of a book which changed the world."

Marx was the kind of author who could never resist a distraction, was easily tempted by the immediate gratification of articles and pamphlets, gossip and feuds, beer and games of chess; thus the writing of "Das Kapital" took longer than he anticipated. Throughout the long gestation of "Das Kapital," its writer maintained a presence of hearty progress. "I have completely demolished the theory of profit as hitherto propounded," he announced jubilantly in January 1858. In truth, all he had to show for his publishers by then was a pile of unpublishable notes in his spidery handwriting, mostly transcribed from books that had caught his eye in the British Library reading room. Although the writer managed to put together 1,200 pages of manuscripts for the first volume of the book despite his chronic illness, it took Marx another year to actually get the manuscripts ready for publishing.

The critical reaction to the German edition published in September 1867 was not the thunderous applause Marx had expected. "The silence about my book makes me fidgety," he complained, and it took four years for the 1,000 copies of that first edition to sell out. "Das Kapital" is now considered a history-changing book, and read as a textbook at universities.