Letter to Friedrich Engels, May 21, 1853

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 21 May 1853


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


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 21 May 1853 28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Engels,

Today the bill for £25 goes off to Freiligrath, who will immediately notify Lièvre of its receipt.[1]

Herewith Wolff's[2] address; he is still sulking. By the by, now that so much has been brought out into the open, I have become convinced that Dronke has been purveying the most abject lies, rumours and gossip at my expense. The only activity, indeed, of which this self-important midget and WOULD-BE Blanqui was capable. His addiction to tittle-tattle had turned him into such a dyed-in- the-wool liar that he himself no longer knew what he was saying or had said.

Don't for God's sake send me any more copies of Weydemeyer's statement or my own.[3] Here alone I have 14 of each which I received the day before yesterday. It would have been more to the point had Weydemeyer sent at least 2 or 3 copies of 'Hirsch's' revelations. E.g., Schabelitz could make use of 1 in Switzerland should further proceedings be taken against him. I like the inevitable Weydemeyerian misprint, where Bangya is made to say Ähnliches instead of Rühmliches.

Nothing else of interest here. I have not seen Blind recently. Have you sent him his Herzen[4] ?

The People's Paper is on the up and up and, for the time being, financially secure. Jones is convening mass meetings for 19 June et seq. at Blackstone Edge, Skurcoat Moor, Mount Sorrell and Nottingham Forest.[5]

Apropos. I was only able to give Pieper 10/-, Strohn having shown me the wrong RAILWAY GUIDE which caused me to miss the PARLIAMENTARY TRAIN,[6] so that I had to travel 2nd class.

Write to me soon.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ See previous letter.
  2. ↑ Wilhelm Wolff's. J. Weydemeyer, 'Der "demokratische" Mouchard' and K. Marx, 'Hirsch's Confessions'.
  3. ↑ W. Hirsch, 'Die Opfer der Moucharderie...'
  4. ↑ A. Herzen, Du développement des idées révolutionnaires en Russie.
  5. ↑ On 21 May 1853 Jones published in The People's Paper an appeal to organise workers' meetings in favour of the People's Charter. At the time Marx wrote several articles for the New-York Daily Tribune on the revival of the Chartist movement (see present edition, Vol. 12)
  6. ↑ Parliamentary trains—a name given in England in the nineteenth century to special trains which, by a parliament act of 1844, ran daily with a speed of no less than 12 miles per hour, fares not exceeding one penny a mile