Publication history of The Ego and Its Own

Cover of the German language first edition, published in Leipzig in 1844.

The Ego and Its Own (German: Der Einzige und sein Eigentum) is a philosophical work by German philosopher Max Stirner (1806-1856), first published in 1844.

First editions

File:The Ego and Its Own - Tsuji Jun translation.jpg

Cover of Tsuji Jun's Japanese first edition (1920)

Original in German

• The original German edition appeared in October 1844 in Leipzig.

Translations (chronologically)

• French ("L'unique et sa propriété", 1899),
• Danish ("Den Eneste og hans Ejendom", 1901),
• Spanish ("El único y su propiedad", 1901),
• Italian ("L'unico e la sua proprietà", 1902),
• Russian ("Edinstvennyj i ego dostojanie", 1906),
• English ("The Ego and His Own", 1907),
• Dutch ("De Eenige en z'n Eigendom", 1907),
• Swedish ("Den ende och hans egendom", 1910),
• Japanese ("Yuiitsusha to sono shoyû", 1920),
• Serbo-Croatian ("Jedini i njegovo vlastništvo", 1976),
• Catalan ("L'únic i la seva propietat", 1986).
• Hungarian ("Az egyetlen és tulajdona", 1991). (Second part only)
• Greek ("O μοναδικός και το δικό του", 2002),
• Portuguese ("O Único e a sua propriedade", 2004),
• Polish ("Jedyny i jego wlasnosc", 2005),
• Czech ("Jediný a jeho vlastnictví", 2010).

English editions

File:Den ende.png

Den ende och hans egendom – a 1911 Swedish edition, with a foreword by Georg Brandes and afterword by Albert Jensen.

First edition (1907)

• The first English Language Edition appeared in 1907; it was a translation by the American individualist anarchist, Steven T. Byington with an introduction by James L. Walker. The publisher was Benjamin R. Tucker, New York. This edition was reprinted several times by several publishers in New York and London up to 1931.

Libertarian Book Club edition (1963)

• The 1963 Libertarian Book Club edition is a re-print of the 1907 Byington translation. Edited by James J. Martin and with a cover by the son of Rudolf Rocker, the edition revived interest in Stirner as an influence on anarchism and related ideologies and brought Max Stirner to a wider audience in the English-speaking world. This edition was reprinted several times by several publishers in the United States and United Kingdom up to 1993, sometimes with a preface by Sidney E. Parker.

Harper & Row - Readings in Fascist, Racist and Elitist Ideology (1971)

• An abridged English edition of the Byington translation revised, selected and annotated by John Carroll. New York / London: Harper & Row 1971. 266 pp. The book appeared in a series "Roots of the Right. Readings in Fascist, Racist and Elitist Ideology", together with writings by Gobineau, Alfred Rosenberg, de Maistre, Maurras. The text consists of a mix of about a hundred quotations from The Ego (and some from Stirner's minor writings), reducing the volume by about a half. The reason why Stirner's work was selected for this series remains unclear given the book's fierce anti-authoritarianism and emphasis on the sovereignty of the individual.

Rebel Press edition (1993)

• The 1993 Rebel Press, London edition is an unabridged republication of the 1963 re-print of the 1907 Byington translation by the Libertarian Book Club. The Rebel Press, London edition has a cover design from anarchist artist and cartoonist, Clifford Harper and a preface by Sidney E. Parker.

Cambridge University press edition (1995)

• The Cambridge University press edition (ed. David Leopold, 1995) is a revised version of the original 1907 Byington translation with a new introduction by David Leopold. Leopold changed the title (His to Its) "not out of ahistorical considerations of 'political correctness' but because Stirner clearly identifies the egoistic subject as prior to gender" (p. xl). While Leopold accepted the Byington translation as "an heroic attempt to convey the readable yet idiosyncratic prose of Stirner's original", he "made a number of amendments, such as removing infelicities and archaisms, replacing the occasional missing sentence, and restoring some of the original paragraph and sections breaks." (p. xxxix)

Other language editions

German

• Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum. Leipzig: Otto Wigand 1845 [Oct. 1844] (original, first edition)
• Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum. 2. Auflage. Leipzig: Otto Wigand 1882
• Der Einzige und sein Eigentum. Einführung Paul Lauterbach. Leipzig: Reclams Universalbibliothek 1893ff
• Der Einzige und sein Eigentum. 3. Auflage. Leipzig: Otto Wigand 1901
• several editions in the 1920s by various publishers
• Der Einzige und sein Eigentum. Nachwort Ahlrich Meyer. Stuttgart: Reclams Universalbibliothek 1972ff
• several editions (some abridged) since 1968 by various publishers

Online editions

• Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum, original German, with concordance of 3 editions.
• The Ego and Its Own, English, based on Tucker's edition, with concordance of 3 editions.
• Electronic text versions of the book
• Stirner's Critics - Stirner's reply to his critics, bilingual (addendum to "The Ego")