Theorien über den Mehrwert
"Theories of Surplus Value" was part of the large "Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863", entitled by Marx "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy" and written as the immediate sequel to the first part of "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy" published in 1859. The total 1861–1863 manuscript consists of 23 notebooks (the pages numbered consecutively from 1 to 1472) running to some 200 printed sheets in length. It is the first systematically worked out draft of all four volumes of "Capital", although still only rough and incomplete. "Theories of Surplus Value" forms the longest (about 110 printed sheets) and most fully elaborated part of this huge manuscript, and it is the first and only draft of the fourth, concluding volume of "Das Kapital". As distinguished from the three theoretical volumes of "Das Kapital", Marx called this volume the historical, historico-critical, or historico-literary part of his work.