Letter to Max Friedlander, the Editor of the Neue Freie Presse

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 30 June 1871


London, June 30, 187 Published in the newspapers Neue Freie Presse, No. 2462, July 4, 1871, Börse des Lebens, Feuilleton und Localblatt der Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, No. 30, July 23, 1871
Printed according to the Neue Freie Presse, verified with the rough manuscript; the covering letter is printed according to the manuscript
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 22
Collection(s): Neue Freie Presse

Dear Friend,

Would you be so kind as to publish the following statement in your newspaper and to send me a copy of the issue in question.

Yours very sincerely,

Karl Marx

TO THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE NEUE FREIE PRESSE

Under the heading "A Socialist Soirée", signed W.,[1] the Vienna

Presse carries a feature article in which I have the honour to figure. W. met me, so he says,at a soirée at Herzen's house. He even recalled the speeches that I made there.

A firm opponent of Herzen, I have always refused to meet him, and have therefore never seen the man in my life.

I doubt whether the imaginative W. has ever been to London. As a matter of fact, there are no "marble steps" there, except in the palaces, though W. even found some in Herzen's "COTTAGE"!

I hereby challenge the imaginative W., whom the laurels of the Paris-Journal and similar police newspapers[2] will not allow to sleep, to name himself.

Karl Marx

  1. ↑ W., "Eine socialistische Soiree", Die Presse, No. 173, June 24, 1871.— Ed
  2. ↑ See this volume, pp. 364, 366.— Ed