Letter to Florence Kelley, December 3, 1887

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 3 December 1887


First published, slightly abridged, in the language of the original (English), in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Job. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVII, Moscow, 1935. Reproduced from the original. Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO FLORENCE KELLEY-WISCHNEWETZKY10

IN NEW YORK

London, 3 December 1887

Dear Mrs Wischnewetzky,

As I told you in my postcard per last mail,[1] William Reeves, publisher of To-day and of the greater portion of London popular Socialist literature, has undertaken the sale of the book.[2] He writes December 1:

'Regarding our conversation of to-day (Wednesday) in reference to the agency of The Condition etc. by Engels we shall be pleased to under- take the same and have copies from you or the publisher in America[3] at the rate of 3s. net bound—the future copies should be sent unbound. The sole charge will be the necessary printing of titles and insertion of same which will cost about 10s.'

And further, December 2: 'In answer to your enquiry as to date of making up accounts we beg to say that every six months is the time and payment made a month after. We understand until other arrangements are made we are dealing with you.'

This latter proviso I made as otherwise Reeves could have evaded settlement of accounts by saying he did not know whom to pay, Mr Lovell or myself, and then cause delay and procrastination. In future transactions other arrangements can be made. As to these he writes December 1st:

'The rates for other works similar in character could be taken at about the same rate of discounts—it depends a little on the price to be put on for retail price, for instance a 6s.- book is supplied to the trade at a little cheaper rate than a 5s.- one.'

So the fellow will keep a door open for haggling and in future cases it will be well to inform me in time, so as to arrange definitely his discount before you put his name on the title as London agent. These people are all alike.

The above terms are of course for books delivered to him carriage paid and free of all expense on his part. He says the carriage is but trifling and so it may be to the trade and for bales, but I know that for parcels sent to private people they stick it on pretty well; Kautsky had to pay above 10s for the copies sent to him, and the Liverpool agent (Wheatley) made me pay 2s.6d. extra expenses on the parcel containing the 1,000 pamphlets,[4] altho' no carriage whatever was charged to me.

We shall send copies to the Socialist press (except Justice which had one from America and said just two lines about it[5] ), to the Athenaeum, Academy and Pall Mall Gazette; Weekly Dispatch and Reynolds. The Commonweal (I sent a copy to Morris) has begun a series of extracts from the book,[6] the first of which I mailed to you to-day. Altogether the prospects are very good. Only we must not send the copies to the press until after Christmas, otherwise they would be wasted.

As to the pamphlet,[7] as I told you, Reeves had it pirated and will of course sell his own lot first. I shall hand the 1,000 copies to Aveling to do the best he can—either sell at meetings or give to Reeves as he may want them; but I am afraid a good deal of them will have to be given away gratis in the long run at meetings.

Your translation of Free Trade shall have attention as soon as ever possible.[8] I shall also write a preface, only I am sure it will not in any case be what you want. It is impossible for me to answer the probable arguments of American protectionists beforehand. I do not know that sort of literature and have no time to go into it. My reasoning in nine cases out of ten would miss the mark, and moreover whatever we may say, they will always find a way out, and have something to say that we cannot foresee. To enter into polemics with them directly, one must be in America. And I have always found that a good book makes its way and has its effect whatever the penny-a-liners of the day may say.

Yours faithfully

F. Engels

  1. ↑ No information is available concerning this postcard.
  2. ↑ F. Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England
  3. ↑ John W. Lovell
  4. ↑ F. Engels, The Labor Movement in America
  5. ↑ Justice, No. 176, 28 May 1887
  6. ↑ On 3 December 1887, The Commonweal (No. 99) carried an article by Henry Ambrose Barker, 'The Condition of the Working Classes. I', which was a precis of the first chapters of Engels' book The Condition of the Working Class in England-, this abstract contained extensive quotations from those chapters. There was no continuation of the article.
  7. ↑ F. Engels, The Labor Movement in America
  8. ↑ Engels means Kelley-Wischnewetzky's translation into English of Marx's speech on free trade (see note 162). Asking Engels to write a preface to the American edition of the Marxian speech, Kelley-Wischnewetzky, in her letter of 24 October 1887, wished the preface to contain a critical evaluation of pronouncements made by the American protectionists.