Karl and Jenny Marx

Troy Jollimore reviews Mary Gabriel's Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution:

Perhaps to some degree this is due to the nature of its primary subject, who, Gabriel writes, was "often fiercely argumentative, intellectually arrogant, and notoriously impatient with anyone who disagreed with him. His frequent drinking episodes...often devolved into verbal if not physical fights. He had little time for niceties; for someone so conceptually fascinated by the alienation of man, Marx routinely alienated those who encountered him." Yet on the same page she notes that "in private Marx was warm, loving, kind, and generally described as excellent company when he was not plagued by sleepless nights or stricken by disease, both due to anxiety over his work." Many visitors to the Marx home, indeed, remarked with surprise on how warm, hospitable, and charming the great theoretician turned out to be.