Letter to Friedrich Engels, May 24, 1859

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 24 May 1859


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 in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO ENGELS[1]

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 24 May 1859

Dear Engels,

If you could possibly let me have some 'TIN', you would greatly oblige me. That wretched Duncker, whom I had been counting on, appears to be putting the thing[2] off ad infinitum. Once again 11 days have gone by without my receiving anything from the dolt. Who do you think it is STOPS MY WAY? None other than Lassalle. First, my thing was held up for 4 weeks on account of his Sickingen. Now that it is nearing its conclusion, the fool must needs cut in yet again with his 'anonymous' pamphlet,[3] which he only wrote because your own 'anonymous' pamphlet[4] gave him no respite. Can't the scoundrel see that decency, if nothing else, demands that my thing be brought out first? I shall wait a day or two, but after that write a really filthy letter to Berlin.

I have seen to your orders for Manchester. If you can possibly find the time tomorrow, write 20-30-40 lines for me in German on the subject of the war; I shall pass them on to Dishrag Liebknecht, not in your writing but by dictating them. There is no time to be lost since the Volk boasts only one type-setter and everything has to be ready by the morning of each Friday.

A point not to be overlooked. With something more original from the theatre of war we ought TO CATCH at least 50 more customers in London.[5] I shall MANAGE the thing in such a way that initially you and I are not directly responsible.

You will be able to judge Gottfried's[6] manoeuvres from the fact that last week in the East End the parson was selling his Hermann to the Whitechapel[7] public for a HALFPENNY, solely in order to stop the sale of the Volk. But where did the fonds[8] come from? Schapper tells me that Willich has been over here. In which case the fellows must have shared out the money and flung the small change to watchdog Heinzen, for the dog has ceased to bark. We shall get to the bottom of it.

As regards the business of publishing our manifesto[9] I SHALL LOOK

Salut.

Your

K. M.

Imandt is marrying his landlady's daughter, a Scotswoman. A nice district, too.[10]

  1. ↑ This letter was first published in an abridged English translation in The Letters of Karl Marx, selected and translated with explanatory notes and an introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliff, New Jersey, 1979.—12, 30, 45, 54, 61, 67, 70, 93, 110, 128, 132, 224, 227, 254, 265, 319, 333, 359, 407, 430, 448, 459, 461, 518, 524
  2. ↑ Marx's A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
  3. ↑ Der italienische Krieg und die Aufgabe Preußens
  4. ↑ Po and Rhine
  5. ↑ Engels wrote an article entitled 'The Campaign in Italy' for the Volk.
  6. ↑ Gottfried Kinkel's
  7. ↑ Whitechapel—a working class district in London's East End.—331, 449
  8. ↑ funds
  9. ↑ See this volume, p. 437.
  10. ↑ An allusion to a joke current at the time: one woman tells another of her son's death in action near Leipzig (1813), whereupon the other remarks: 'And a nice district, too!' ('Auch eine schöne Gegend!')