Letter to Karl Marx, July 29, 1857

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 29 July 1857


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Waterloo near Liverpool, 29 July[1] (Wednesday) 1857

Dear Marx,

Here I am at last at the seaside, where I have been since the evening of the day before yesterday.[2] It's 3 miles beyond New Brighton, but to the north of the Mersey. Unfortunately I arrived with a raging cold which has temporarily aggravated the glandular trouble, caused me a great deal of pain and spoilt my sleep. The worst of it is that for a day or two I shall be pretty well incapable of work, my daily report for Heckscher and other such unavoidable notes being as much as I can manage. In the evening I'm in such intense pain and so enervated that up till now I haven't even been able to read. That this damned thing should have had to happen now! Thus, since Friday evening or Saturday morning all my time has been wasted first by interruptions, then

by my illness. I'm one of your really miserable figures, stooped, lame and weak and—e.g. as at present—beside myself with pain.

I had a hamper of wine sent to you from Manchester which will do your wife good: 6 bottles of Bordeaux, 3 of port, 3 of sherry. It should be there by now if the thing was properly attended to. Let me know the colour of the seals on the port and sherry so that I can keep a check on my wine merchant. Sherry ought to be yellow, port, I think, green. The Bordeaux bears the label Co. Destournel; I have just imported it.

You will have the militaria[3] as soon as at all possible. Unfortunately I don't know whether the post reaches London in 1 day; I shall only discover that from experience within the next few days.

I hope that the sea air will soon make me fit again for the usual drudgery. As things are now, I'm bored to death.

Warmest regards to your wife and daughters.

Your

F. E.

You'll have received the £5 note.

Address: F. E., care of Mr Swingwood, Bath St., Waterloo near Liverpool

  1. ↑ wrong date in the original: 30 July
  2. ↑ From 27 July to 8 November 1857 Engels underwent medical treatment at the seaside: at Waterloo near Liverpool (until the end of August, when he returned to Manchester for a fortnight in view of his father's arrival there), at Ryde on the Isle of Wight (from the 8th to the end of September), and in Jersey (until 8 November), whence he returned to Manchester.—149, 154, 160, 195
  3. ↑ Articles on military matters for The American Cyclopaedia