Letter to Franz Duncker, May 21, 1859

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 21 May 1859


First published in International Review of Social History, Vol. X, Part 1, 1965
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO FRANZ DUNCKER

IN BERLIN

London, 21 May [1859]

Dear Sir,

From a communication I have received from North America[1]

I see that about 100 copies of the first instalment[2] have been ordered

[3]

by party friends of mine. Whether you have already received the order, I do not know. However, I was advised at the same time that we can count on 100 more copies being ordered in the same circles as soon as the price is known. I would therefore request you to advise me of the latter by return. This does not, of course, mean that the work could not be advertised for the benefit of the general public in North America at some later date.

The slowness with which the matter is being handled would not appear to be in your own interest. It is certainly not in mine.

In the list of printer's errors for the sheets I have had I would request you to include the following...[4]

  1. ↑ In his letter of 24 April 1859 from New York, Albrecht Komp told Marx that there were favourable opportunities for selling copies of the first instalment of his book, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, in the USA. Enclosed was a Jetter from Joseph Weydemeyer of 27 March 1859 confirming Komp's information.—440, 446, 454
  2. ↑ K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.
  3. ↑ From Lucan's Pharsalia, I, 255.
  4. ↑ The end of the letter is missing.