Letter to Friedrich Engels, June 3, 1867

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 3 June 1867


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 3, Berlin, 1930
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 3 JUNE 1867

DEAR FRED,

T h e reason why sheets 10 and 11 are not being sent to you, indeed why no more proofs[1] at all, you will discover from the enclosed note from Wigand. On the other hand, you will receive the first 5 pulls that have been sent to me. You can keep them ABOUT 8-10 days, but then you must let me know exactly which points in the exposition of the form of value you think should be specially popularised for the philistines in the supplement.[2]

Fenians ordered. 4 3 9 Other commissions will be executed BY AND BY. See the Hermann of last week. It is now the private herald of Mr Freiligrath, who is reporting on the PROGRESS OE THE SUBSCRIFHON here each week via Juch.[3] Little Jenny says that if her father ever did such a thing, she would publicly proclaim him her non-father. Whereupon Lafargue asked her: Mais qu'est-ce que votre mère dirait là-dessus?[4] T h e noble poet[5] is incidentally sly enough to declare already that he will have to remain in London on account of his resp. part in the Shakespeare translation. Ferdinand and Ida,[6] Ida and Ferdinand, A WELL-ASSORTED COUPLE, THOSE TWO!

Apropos. When Gumpert asked me which hospital Lafargue was at, I said St Thomas's. I was, however, mistaken. He is at Bartholomew's Hospital and asks for the ERROR to be corrected. Please do not forget to supply a photogramm of yourself and Lupus.

MY BEST COMPLIMENTS TO MRS Lizzy,[7] Moore and Chlormayer.[8]

Salut.

Your

K. M.

I was exceedingly pleased to read in the Paris correspondence of The Times that the Parisians chanted their support for the Poles to Alexander's face, etc.[9] Mr Proudhon and his little doctrinaire clique are not the FRENCH PEOPLE.

  1. ↑ of the first volume of Capital
  2. ↑ During his stay in Hanover in April and May 1867, Marx decided to write an appendix on forms of value for Volume One of Capital—an idea that was supported by Ludwig Kugelmann. Marx wanted to supplement and specify Chapter I of the main text on commodities and money. He implemented this idea in the first edition of Volume One (1867). In the second German edition of 1872 Marx revised this appendix and incorporated it in the relevant passages of the text. In the subsequent editions of Capital, including the English one of 1887 edited by Engels, the text was given in this form.
  3. ↑ A reference to the subscription for Ferdinand Freiligrath that was started in the spring of 1867. The poet's admirers wanted to present him with a 'people's donation' since he had lost his post of manager in the English branch of the Bank of Switzerland after the latter's bankruptcy. With this aim in view, committees were organised in Britain, Germany and the United States through which funds were gathered. Reports about the subscription were regularly published in the London newspaper Hermann.
  4. ↑ But what would your mother say to that?
  5. ↑ Ferdinand Freiligrath
  6. ↑ Ferdinand Freiligrath's wife
  7. ↑ Lizzy Burns
  8. ↑ The name given by Marx in joke to Carl Schorlemmer, a chemist by profession.
  9. ↑ The Times of 3 June 1867 carried a report by its Paris correspondent which stated that during the ceremony of welcome for the Russian Emperor Alexander II in Paris, there had been shouts of 'Long Live Poland' in the crowd. At the meeting of 18 June 1867 the General Council of the First International passed a resolution approving the mass demonstration of solidarity in Paris with the Poles suppressed by Tsarism. The text of the,Council's resolution was published in The Commonwealth, No. 224 of 22 June 1867 (see The General Council of the First International. 1866-1868. Minutes, Moscow, 1974, pp. 129-30).