The Revelations was never reprinted during Marx’s and Engels’ lifetime. After Engels’ death this work, like some other works written by Marx and Engels in the 1850s, was prepared for the press by Marx’s daughter Eleanor. It appeared in London under the title Secret Diplomatic History of the Eighteenth Century after Eleanor’s death in 1899. In this book, the pamphlet The Defensive Treaty was printed as a separate chapter. Hence, as distinct from the publication during Marx’s lifetime, this book contained six chapters. Moreover, in the 1899 edition the concluding part (about four pages) of the fifth (fourth in the original) chapter was omitted.
In English the Revelations was also published in London and New York in 1969; the French translation appeared in 1954; the German translation in 1960, 1977 and 1981; the Polish translation in 1967; the Italian translation in 1977.
All these publications, as a rule, reproduce or are based upon the 1899 edition but restore the concluding pages of the fifth (fourth in the original) chapter omitted in that edition. Commentaries in some of them are biased.
In this volume the text of the book is reproduced from The Free Press collated with the 1899 edition.