The Kreuznach myth : Marx, Feuerbach and the 'Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law'

This article brings new bibliographical methods to bear on Marx's 'Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law'. It explains the origins of the manuscript, its rediscovery by David Riazanov, and the reasons for his suggestion that Marx wrote it in the summer of 1843. It contests this narrative and proposes that Marx began the project a year earlier. It then sets out the implications of this alternative dating, and specifically the need to diminish the emphasis on Marx's adoption of Feuerbach's 'transformative method'. Ultimately, to reconsider the date of this one manuscript is to reconsider received interpretations of Marx's intellectual development.