Letter to Joseph Weydemeyer, October 31, 1851

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 31 October 1851


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXV, Moscow, 1934
This letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895, International Publishers, New York, 1953
Published in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38


To Joseph Weydemeyer in New York

London, 31 October 1851

28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Weydemeyer,

I am sending yet another letter to America in your wake. For after mature consideration with Lupus, I believe that we might do some business together.

Firstly. The erstwhile Neue Rheinische Zeitung was not widely distributed in America. If you could manage to ferret out some bourgeois or other, or even just the necessary credit with a printer and paper merchant, I believe it would pay to create out of the N.Rh.Z. a kind of pocket library in the form of small booklets such as those produced by Becker in Cologne.[1] E.g. the Schlesische Milliarde by W. Wolff, Hungary by Engels,[2] the Prussian bourgeoisie by myself[3] , and some of Weerth's feuilletons, etc. I would send you the things from here if they are not to be found there, at the same time indicating the most suitable for selection. You would have to write a short general introduction to this N.Rh.Z. Pocket Library, and notes or a postscript to individual volumes where circumstances seemed to demand it.

Secondly. Similarly, you could bring out in the same form and with explanatory remarks Engels' and my anti-Heinzen pieces from the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung.[4] I think they should sell well.

We would share the profits after deducting production costs.

Thirdly. I have had all kinds of inquiries and orders from America for the 6 numbers of my Revue that have appeared, but have not responded to any of them as I could not trust the rascals there. You could announce that the thing is to be had from you, but obviously a fair number of orders would have to be received before we would dispatch anything from here.

Fourthly. You as well as ourselves could, if the moment demanded it, include in the small library referred to above pamphlets written in response to that demand. Commercially it is, of course, safer and more convenient to start off with material that is ready to hand. In your short forewords and postscripts you could conduct the necessary polemic, both to the left and to the right.

I therefore suggest that you should turn publisher. There's less to it than to a newspaper, and politically you achieve the same end. You avoid the long, time-consuming preparations attaching to a journal.

I believe that if you put the matter properly to Reich, who has money, he will join you in the enterprise.

Warm regards to your family from my family, Freiligrath, Lupus, etc.

Your

K. Marx

  1. ↑ Apparently the reference is to the publication of Gesammelte Aufsätze von Karl Marx (see Note 347) started by Hermann Becker in Cologne and interrupted by his arrest. The first issues were to contain Marx's articles from the Rheinische Zeitung.
  2. ↑ F. Engels, 'The Magyar Struggle', 'Hungary' and other articles.
  3. ↑ K. Marx, 'The Bourgeoisie and the Counter-Revolution'.
  4. ↑ F. Engels, 'The Communists and Karl Heinzen'; K. Marx, 'Moralising Criticism and Critical Morality'.