Letter to Pyotr Lavrov, October 20, 1885

Author(s)	Friedrich Engels
Written	20 October 1885

First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVII, Moscow, 1935
Printed according to the original
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47

ENGELS TO PYOTR LAVROV

IN PARIS

[London,] 20 October 1885

My dear Lavrov,

Greatly to my annoyance I am unable to help you with sources for a history of Chartism. 452 All my papers, books, journals, etc., which date back to that period went astray during the upheavals of 1848-49. The chief source, The Northern Star, is nowhere to be found, even in the north of England (Harney, its former editor-in-chief, is seeking in vain to get hold of a set). What the bourgeois have written on the sub- ject is for the most part false; nor have I ever concerned myself with such literature. It's unfortunate, for if Harney doesn't write his memoirs, the history of the first great workers' party will be lost for ever. 4 5 3

Yours ever and with regret,

F.E.