This unabridged paperback edition is based on the first translation into English by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, which was edited by Frederick Engels. The book focuses on capitalist production, and analyses capitalism's workings through detailed research and observation, focusing mainly on Britain, at the time the most advanced capitalist country in the world.

This edition was published on the 100th anniversary of the first German edition. This text is that of the 1887 English edition, with the changes made by Engels in 1890 incorporated. These changes are indicated where they occur, and the editors have also checked original sources and made the necessary corrections in the footnotes.

Following Engels's preface to the first English edition, the editors have added all the Prefaces and Afterwords by Marx and Engels to the German and French editions.