Letter to Karl Marx, September 14, 1852

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 14 September 1852


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 1, Berlin, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

[Manchester,] 14 September 1852

Dear Marx,

Pieper has written asking me to send him the corrected translation[1] by return of post. Cela me convenait bien.[2] I had a pain in the abdomen and was unfit for any kind of work. Tell him that if he wants answers to his letters, the least he can do is give his address; Pieper, Esq., is not as well known as all that in London, even if he has become a clerk at 25/-a week. Apart from that, there's no reason why he shouldn't go on with the translation, but he must take a little more trouble or, if he can't, at least leave blank spaces to be filled in by me, when he strikes a difficult patch, which is after all better than writing nonsense out of sheer carelessness. His pretext for writing to me, by the way, was simply that he didn't know whether I thought him capable of doing the thing at all. He shall have a detailed list of his principal mistakes, with comments.[3]

I might be able to get the thing done tonight and tomorrow evening, as I am now feeling better.

For the rest, his letter faithfully echoed everything he had heard at your house and which I, of course, already knew.

I take it that Pindar has been to see you? He wrote to me from London and is on his way to Paris. I shall write to him this evening. I have also made the acquaintance of his Swede or Finn; c'est une oie, petite bourgeoise au plus haut degré, qui paraît s'être bientôt consolée du départ de son époux.[4] He was right to give the creature the slip. I shall visit his mater once or twice more for appearances' sake and then drop the whole thing; c'est embêtant[5] to listen to the cold-blooded little witch maligning her husband.

I hope the discounting affair turned out all right and that things at home are going a little better. I am now thinking up a new way of saving a few pounds; if it succeeds, I shall probably be able to send you something more by the beginning of next month—i.e. in about 14-16 days. It depends partly on whether my brother-in-law[6] comes here and if so, when.

Enclosed two things from Weydemeyer; you might let me have the Lithogr. back some time for the archives. Häfner's memorandum[7] is interesting, though obviously written for our consumption—c'est une pétition.

Best wishes to your wife and children.

Your

F. E.

You'll be glad to see that Heinzen is on his last legs.[8]

  1. ↑ of the first chapter of Marx's work The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (see this volume, pp. 175 and 183)
  2. ↑ That suited me very well.
  3. ↑ See this volume, pp. 190-93.
  4. ↑ she's a goose, petty bourgeois to the marrow, who seems quickly to have consoled herself for her husband's departure
  5. ↑ it's a bore
  6. ↑ Emil Blank
  7. ↑ In a memorandum entitled 'Drei Jahre in Paris', L. Hafner, a German petty-bourgeois refugee, gave his opinion of the German émigrés in Paris in 1849-51
  8. ↑ Engels has in mind the state of Heinzen's New York newspaper Janus which published attacks on the Communist League and carried insinuations against Marx and Engels personally