Letter to Karl Marx, end of 1877-beginning of 1878

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written December 1877


First published in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1931
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


ENGELS TO MARX[1]

IN LONDON

[London, end of 1877-beginning of 1878] Saturday morning

Dear Moor,

I have gone and got me two swollen ankles and shall be unable to wear boots for a couple of days. I shall drive to the bank forthwith to collect some money and, if you care to come this evening, you will find what you require.

Tussy is quite right; Maskelyne should be read either after or at the same time as Wallace, for the details about people in Maskelyne, all of which cannot possibly be remembered, acquire interest only through the intimate knowledge of these various persons displayed by Wallace. So be so kind as to return it when you come so that I shall be able to appreciate Wallace in all his

FOOLERY.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Engels wrote this letter when working on the article 'Natural Science in the Spirit World', which he most probably finished in early 1878. Here the reference is to the books: J. N. Maskelyne, Modern Spiritualism, London, 1876, and A. R. Wallace, On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, London, 1875, Engels' principal sources of information on spiritualists and spiritualism attacked in his article.
    The article first appeared in the Social-Democratic yearbook Illustrierter Neue Welt-Kalender for 1898 published in Hamburg. Engels incorporated it into Dialectics of Nature (see present edition, Vol. 25, pp. 345-55).