Letter to Maurice Lachâtre, after February 14, 1873

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 14 February 1873


First published in Cahiers de l'Institut Maurice Thorez, No. 28, September-October, Paris, 1972. Printed according to the original. Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


ENGELS TO MAURICE LACHÂTRE[1]

IN SAN SEBASTIAN

[Draft]

[London, after 14 February 1873]

Citizen,

I accept your proposal that I should write the life of Karl Marx, a work that would at the same time be the history of the German communist party before '48 and of the socialist party after '52.[2] Looked at from this point of view, the biography of the man would become the history of the party of which Marx indisputably is the highest personification, and would be of great interest to French democracy. It is this consideration that would persuade me to lay aside my work so as to devote myself to a task that would take time and call for research, if it was to be worthy of its subject. But I cannot agree to set to work until I have received a further letter from you informing me of the conditions which, no doubt by an oversight, you omitted to mention in your letter of 14 February.[3]

  1. ↑ The draft of this letter, written in Lafargue's hand, was drawn up as a reply to Lachâtre's letter to Engels of 14 February 1873, probably soon after its receipt. In his letter, Lachâtre suggested that Engels write a short biography of Marx, which he intended to include in the French edition of Volume I of Capital, undertaken by his publishing house. This plan did not materialise.
  2. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party.
  3. ↑ See this volume, p. 486.