Letter to Karl Marx, January 11, 1853

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 11 January 1853


First published 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


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 11 January 1853

Dear Marx,

I had hoped that I might have been able to call in on you again yesterday on my way to the station for, as a result of a somewhat unpleasantly outspoken letter about my prolonged absence[1] and the work accumulating up here, I was compelled all of a sudden to pack my bags and hasten back to the office. Having scandalously neglected my business in the CITY, I had to settle it yesterday at the last moment. This held me up so long that I had no option but to set course recta via[2] if I was to appear today, as I needs must, AT A DECENT HOUR at the office; anyhow, I would have turned up at your house at a time in the evening when all your disciples are wont to foregather there, in which case I couldn't have answered for the consequences, i.e. pots at Göhringer's, Zimmer-mann's, Wood's and other night haunts.

It would be best if you were to make a PARCEL of the letters from Cluss, etc., etc., American newspapers and other such stuff, and send it per Pickford & Co., or Chaplin, Home & Co., addressed to me here at Ermen & Engels, so that the firm pays the carriage.

Waiting for me here was a letter from Madier, in passable English, about a patent of his which might have some impact on our industry. Whether or not the thing is any good, he has all sorts of grand ideas; however, I'll see what I can do. If the invention is a good one, it will earn him a hefty sum, the market being almost unlimited. Should you happen to run into him, tell him I should have written to him one of these days, but I am again more than fully occupied.

I wish some of our lads in London would really settle down to a plus ou moins[3] steady job, for they're becoming inveterate loafers and, once you get that way, it's 10 to one you'll be tipsy for 36 hours at the least, as has twice happened to me, to the great astonishment of my sister.[4]

In the spring or early summer I shall again come up to London. Hasn't that thing[5] arrived from Schabelitz yet? Warm regards to your wife and children and to the tipsy crew likewise.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Engels went to London in the second half of December 1852 and stayed there until 10 January 1853
  2. ↑ direct
  3. ↑ more or less
  4. ↑ Marie Blank
  5. ↑ K. Marx, Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne (see this volume, p. 264).