Letter to P. van der Willigen, October 4, 1872

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 4 October 1872


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 50, Moscow 1981
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


MARX TO P. VAN DER WILLIGEN[1]

IN LONDON

London, 4 October 1872

Dear Sir,

My best thanks for your pamphlet.[2]

The report of the Hague Congress will not appear for some little while, whereupon I shall send you a copy.

Enclosed the first instalment of the French translation of my book, Das Kapital.[3] I am sending you at the same time the 4 instalments of the 2nd German edition that have appeared so far.[4]

You must excuse me for not having replied any sooner to your various letters, the reasons being a complete lack of time and a surfeit of work. I shall be pleased to see you at my place one evening (e.g. Wednesday) next week.

Yours very sincerely,

Karl Marx

  1. ↑ This is a reply to van der Willigen's letter of 2 October 1872 in which the Dutch reporter asked Marx when and where the official account of the Hague Congress would be published. The original of Marx's letter is kept at Karl-Marx-Haus in Trier.
  2. ↑ v.d.W. [van der Willigen, P.] De Internationale en de Parijsche Commune van 1871.
  3. ↑ On 7 January 1872 Lafargue wrote to Engels that since Proudhonist ideas held considerable sway with Spanish workers he had arranged with José Mesa to have Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy translated into Spanish, and passed on Mesa's request that a special foreword be written for the Spanish edition. However, the translation was not completed, and the foreword was not written. Several excerpts translated into Spanish were carried by La Emancipaciôn.
  4. ↑ A reference to the 'Circulaire à toutes les fédérations de l'Association Internationale des Travailleurs' adopted at Sonvillier on 12 November 1871 (see Note 374). It was printed in La Emancipacion, the organ of the Spanish Federal Council, on 25 December 1871.