Letter to Florence Kelley, February 4, 1885

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 4 February 1885


First published, in the language of the original (English), in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906
Reproduced from the original in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO FLORENCE KELLEY-WISCHNEWETZKY

IN HEIDELBERG

London, 4 February 1885 122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.

Dear Madam,

I hope you have received the letter I wrote to you about the time of the New Year.[1]

I now forward to you, registered, the ms. you sent to me, and only regret that press of work prevented my returning it earlier.[2] I have looked it over carefully, and entered some corrections and suggestions in pencil, in order to show you how I should like it translated. Here and there you may find that my suggestions, taken together with the rest of the sentence, will not turn out to be correct English; in these cases I left it to you to set that right.

As for the technical terms, if you will be good enough to forward me from time to time a list of them with the pages on which they occur, I shall be glad to give you the English equivalents.

The German preface (as well as the English dedication)[3] I would, in your place, leave out entirely. They contain nothing of interest now. The first part of the preface refers to a phase of intellectual development in Germany and elsewhere which is now almost forgotten, and the second part is in our days superfluous.

As to translations of my other writings you will understand as a matter of course that I cannot now take any positive engagements. There are people here who wish to translate one thing or another, and I have consented conditionally, that is to say if they find a publisher and really undertake the work.

The English preface I shall write[4] when things are a little more advanced.

In the meantime I remain

Yours very truly,

F. Engels

  1. ↑ The letter mentioned has not been found.
  2. ↑ The reference is to the manuscript of the English translation of Engels' book The Condition of the Working-Class in England (present edition, Vol. 4) prepared by the American socialist Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky for publication in the United States (see also Note 360).
  3. ↑ 359
  4. ↑ 360