This page gives an overview of biographies of Karl Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883), the German-born philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist.

Born in Trier to a middle-class family, he studied Hegelian philosophy, and political economy, lived in many places, like Berlin, Paris, Brussels and London, and developed a fundamental, theoretical and practical critique on industrial capitalism.

The so-called "intellectual biographies" (of which the 1939 book of Isaiah Berlin is the best example), describe (shortly) the life of the thinker, but have a primary focus on the development of his ideas.

First, "some familarity with the ideas of Marx and/or Engels is essential to an understanding of their personal and political life."

Some biographies "are excessively sympathetic, bordering on the hagiographical, while others tend toward an exorcism rite, treating Marx or Engels as demons of the modern world."

Finally, Eubanks notes a significant lack of descriptions of the lives of Marx and Engels together.

Geschichte seines Lebens, written by Franz Mehring, a German historian and translated in English in 1935 by Edward Fitzgerald as Karl Marx: The Story of His Life.

During a large part of the twentieth century this book was considered the classical biography of Marx.

[11] The work has been translated into many languages, including Russian (1920), Dutch (1921), Danish (1922), Hungarian (1925), Japanese (1930) and Spanish (1932).

Karl Marx: Leben und Werk was written by Otto Rühle and first published in German in 1928.

[12] An English translation by Eden and Cedar Paul was published under the title Karl Marx.

Berlin argues that Marx's system of thought depends upon indefensible metaphysical presuppositions.

Marx Without Myth: A Chronological Study of his Life and Work by Maximilien Rubel Karl Marx: An intellectual biography was written by Rolf Hosfeld and first published in German in 2009 as Die Geister, die er rief: eine neue Karl-Marx-Biographie.