Letter to Laura Lafargue, May 22, 1883

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 22 May 1883


First published, in the language of the original (English), in: F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. I, Paris, 1956
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE

IN PARIS

London, 22 May 1883

My dear Laura,

I had not, as Paul suggests, forgotten his five pd. note, but having Sam Moore here, could not get a free moment when to get it ready and register the letter. Yesterday evening Sam returned to Manchester and the note would have left here to-day, but for Paul's letter which alters his directions to me. The cheque is enclosed, £ 10.-

So ce cher Paul is while I write this, a prisoner. 9 He has just (5.45) been debarred from receiving visitors and can now in all rest and peace discuss with Guesde the chances of la révolution révolutionnaire. We drank his health last Sunday[1] in a bowl of splendid Maitrank[2] and wished him any amount of pluck and patience.

Well, for a long time I thought you might profit of Paul's involuntary seclusion, to come over to London, and would have at once placed the whole of 122 Regent's Park Road at your disposal, but from all I learnt I was afraid I might hurt someone's feelings by such a proposal. Even Nim when she returned, never mentioned a word about it, that you had spoken of showing your bright face in this dull climate; and when Paul wrote he expected you to lunch with him every morning in St-Pélagie I lost heart altogether. Now however it is all right, and I hope to hear soon from you that you accept my invitation, to make this place your headquarters for a couple of months at least, which of course will not exclude trips to the sea-side, etc. If Paul has to be under lock and key, so much the more reason for you to look after your own health.

While Sam was here, we found out, through him, the very unpleasant fact that Mohr never had, nor have we, the right to stop unauthorised translation of the Kapital. The right was lost as soon as the first year elapsed without a commencement of translation being published. So as there are several fellows in the field,[3] we have to dodge and to use the unpublished 2nd volume as a means to bring them round.

The 2nd volume will give me an awful deal of work — at least the II book. 4 There is one complete text, of about 1868, but a mere brouillon.[4] Then there are at least three, if not four, Ueb er arbeitungen[5] belonging to various later periods, but none of them completed. That will be a job to select from them a definitive text! The 3rd book is complete since 1869-70 and has never been touched since. But here, where the rent of land is treated, I shall have to compare his Russian extracts[6] for notes, facts and instances. Maybe I shall be able to concoct even a bit of a 3rd volume from the ms. of 1858-62 58 (the beginning of which appeared in Berlin [in] 1859[7] ) and which at the end of every chapter contains the critical history of the theoretical points discussed in it.

Lately I have been occupied with sorting the correspondence. There is a large box full of most important letters [from] 1841 (nay 1837 from your grandfather Marx[8] ) to 1862. It is nearly sorted, but it will take me some hours more to complete it. I can assure you it is great fun to me to stumble over these old things most of which concern me as much as they did Mohr and there is such a deal to laugh over. Nim helps me — awful lot of dusting required! and we have many a good laugh over old times. The correspondence since 1862 he has sorted, in a passable way, himself. But before we fathom all the mysteries of that garret full of boxes, packets, parcels, books, etc., some time must elapse. And I have to prepare for the 3rd edition sundry additions from the French translation 59 which I know Mohr intended inserting; and that must be done in 3-4 weeks.

But now it's post-time and so good-bye for to-day.

Yours affectionately,

F. Engels

  1. ↑ 20 May
  2. ↑ Wine flavoured with sweet woodruff, May wine.
  3. ↑ The idea of translating Capital into English occurred to Marx as early as 1865, when he was working on the manuscript (see Marx's letter to Engels of 31 July 1865, present edition, Vol. 42). The British journalist and member of the International's General Council, Peter Fox, was to help Marx find a publisher. However, this matter was not settled due to Fox's death in 1869. The English translation of the first volume of Capital, edited by Engels, did not appear until after Marx's death, in January 1887, and was published by Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., London. The translation was done by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling between mid-1883 and March 1886. Eleanor Marx-Aveling took part in the preparatory work for the edition (see also this volume, pp. 33 and 127-28).
  4. ↑ draft
  5. ↑ revised versions
  6. ↑ Engels is referring to the extracts from statistical reports and specialised studies of the various forms of land ownership and the history of the village commune in Russia which Marx wrote down in the 1870s. He intended to use this material for the section on ground rent in Book III of Capital. However, this plan did not materialise (see Engels' Preface to Volume III of Capital, present edition, Vol. 37).
  7. ↑ K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Part One.
  8. ↑ Heinrich Marx