Letter to Joseph Weydemeyer, October 29, 1850

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 29 October 1850


First published: in Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXV, Moscow, 1934.
Source: Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38, pp. 240-241

London, 29 October 1850

64 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Weydemeyer,

I beg you to carry out the following transaction for me:

Borrow from Schuster or somebody else the money necessary to redeem my silver from the Frankfurt pawnbroker's,[1] then sell the silver to a goldsmith or wherever it can be sold in Frankfurt, repay the man who loaned you the money for redeeming the silver, and send the balance to me here.

Neither you nor the other man will be incurring any risk for, should you not be able to sell the stuff at a higher price, all you have to do is take it back to the pawnbroker's.

On the other hand my present circumstances are such that I must at all costs raise some money, even to be able to continue working.

The only items I would ask you to return to the pawnbroker's, since they have no saleable value, are 1) a small silver mug, 2) a silver plate, 3) a small knife and fork in a case—all belonging to little Jenny.[2]

I very much approve of your plan for a popular work on political economy and only hope that you will soon make a start on it.[3]

Warm regards to your wife[4] from my wife and self.

Your

K. Marx

  1. ↑ In the summer of 1849, after the closing down of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Jenny Marx on her way to Trier with her children stopped for a few days in Frankfurt am Main where, badly needing money to continue her journey, she pawned, with the help of Joseph and Louise Weydemeyer, the silver plate she had inherited from her family's Scottish relations.
  2. ↑ Marx's eldest daughter
  3. ↑ Weydemeyer did not carry out his plan to write a popular outline of political economy until after his arrival in the USA in October 1851. This work was published in New York in April-August 1853 in the German newspaper Die Reform under the title 'National-ökonomische Skizzen'.
  4. ↑ Louise