Letter to Friedrich Engels, September 9, 1852

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 9 September 1852


First published considerably abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 1, Berlin, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 9 September 1852 28 Dean Street, Soho Dear Engels,

Received, the £4 Sperlinge.[1]

I have again written to my mater and think that at least it may do some good.[2]

Besides, I have today made another attempt, which I trust will at long last succeed, to obtain the money on Dana, for I am very hard-pressed, et je n'ai pas à perdre du temps![3]

The doctor has just been and prescribed something for the whole FAMILY excepté moi.[4] My wife is getting better; little Laura's condition is worst of all.

You have no idea what a silly ass Pieper is! Every day he asks me whether you have sent the thing[5] back yet and what you had to say about his outstanding piece of work. Of course I couldn't tell him and now the clown imagines that out of envy I am withholding the praises you showered on him.

Today, when I went out to call the doctor, I ran into the humbug. 'Has Engels written and sent the translation?' Not yet, I told him, to which Pieper replied: 'But he will, for I myself have written to him.' Should you reply you might point out to him that there is no call for him to have any say in my transactions with 31011.

Enclosed a memorandum from Paris[6] ; it fell into the hands of a friend of mine[7] there who sent me a copy of it, and I have made a further copy for the Manchester archives.[8]

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ Marx wrote Sperlinge (sparrows) instead of 'sterling'.
  2. ↑ This letter of Marx's has not been found
  3. ↑ and I must lose no time
  4. ↑ except me
  5. ↑ Translation into English of the first chapter of Marx's work The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte made by Pieper (see this volume, p. 175).
  6. ↑ In a memorandum entitled 'Drei Jahre in Paris', L. Hafner, a German petty-bourgeois refugee, gave his opinion of the German émigrés in Paris in 1849-51
  7. ↑ Zerffi
  8. ↑ Manchester archives—documents of the Communist League, letters and other materials relating to the revolutionary activity of Marx and Engels kept at Engels house