Letter to Friedrich Engels, May 23, 1856

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 23 May 1856


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO ENGELS[1]

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 23 May 1856

28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Engels,

The family went off yesterday.[2] I have been incapable of work this week, partly because of the TROUBLE in the house, partly because of a rheumaticky back such as I have never experienced before.

Herewith Bazancourt[3] —the 'Napoleonic' account of the Crimean business. Might not something be made of it for Putnam's}[4] It's urgent that I obtain the services of this firm since the money and gear needed for the journey have compelled me to accept through Zitschke a sole bill for £30 on myself, payable in 3 months' time. A man from Putnam's has been to see Freiligrath, and they are willing to take articles.

I have only read the excerpts from Bazancourt that were published in the French papers. To judge by them, it would appear to provide much amusing matter. The thing cannot, I

think, be treated other than flippantly. If done, it should not be made too short, but solely with the idea of filling up space.

Trübner, who looked like accepting my Swedish stuff two months ago but then gave no further sign of life, wrote yesterday and arranged an entrevue[5] on Tuesday to discuss the matter. That would provide 20 sheets of work.[6]

I am in a SERIOUS DILEMMA as to whether or not I should now go on a TRIP. On the one hand I've got to slog away at making money. On the other the doctor[7] has told me—and I believe he's right—that I should travel a bit and have a change of air, as my liver is again functioning irregularly. I AM NOT YET DECIDED what I should do. It's not as though staying here were especially economical, since I also have Pieper round my neck. But the main thing is my work.

As TO Bazancourt, let me know whether you need the first part as well. If nothing can be made of the thing it would be better not to buy it.

I am incapable of writing today, but must nevertheless ask you to clear up a philological doubt. In Henry IV, Shakespeare used the word 'hiren' for 'siren' and, according to a note made by that pedant, Johnson,[8] the form 'hiren' also occurs in other early English writers.[9] The substitution of h for s is QUITE in order, but might there not be some connection between 'hiren' and 'Hure',[10] and hence also 'siren'? Or with 'hoeren',[11] auris, etc.? You can see TO WHICH LOW STATE OF SPIRIT I am DEPRESSED today from the great interest I show in this matter.

I have received some very curious information about Ruge's tragedy, the Neue Welt, in which 'the tragedy of love turns into a farce'. Shall tell you about it in my next.

Herzen is going to Switzerland. I await your COMMUNICATIONS on Ireland.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ This letter was first published in an abridged English translation in The Letters of Karl Marx, selected and translated with explanatory notes and an introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliff, New Jersey, 1979.—12, 30, 45, 54, 61, 67, 70, 93, 110, 128, 132, 224, 227, 254, 265, 319, 333, 359, 407, 430, 448, 459, 461, 518, 524
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 33.
  3. ↑ Bazancourt, L'expédition de Crimée jusqu' à la prise de Sébastopol.
  4. ↑ Engels made excerpts from Bazancourt's book between June and September 1856. In the autumn of that year he summed up the results of his critical analysis in an article entitled 'Saint-Arnaud'. Marx sent the article to the American journal Putnam's Monthly, but the editors returned it unpublished.— 45, 51, 71, 73, 80, 93, 106, 124, 126, 128
  5. ↑ interview
  6. ↑ This refers to a work planned by Marx on the history of-British and Russian diplomacy in the eighteenth century, of which he only completed five chapters of the Introduction. For these he made use of pamphlets, diplomatic documents and unpublished manuscripts, mostly of the period of the Northern War (the Russo-Swedish war of 1700-21), which he found in the British Museum Library. His negotiations with Nikolaus Trübner for publication of the work ended in failure. The chapters of the Introduction appeared by instalments in Urquhart's Sheffield Free Press from late June to early August 1856 as they were sent in by Marx. Eventually publication was stopped because of arbitrary editorial abridgements and printing errors. In June 1856 the London Free Press began reprinting the text from the Sheffield paper, and on 16 August 1856 it started reproducing the chapters from the beginning, with publication continuing until 1 April 1857. In both papers the unfinished work was printed under the title Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century (see present edition, Vol. 15). In 1899 Eleanor Aveling, Marx's daughter, published it in London in book form under the heading Secret Diplomatic History of the Eighteenth Century.—46, 56, 73, 81, 94, 110, 112, 120
  7. ↑ Freund
  8. ↑ Marx means Johnson's notes in Plays of W. Shakespeare. With Notes of Samuel Johnson. King Henry IV is in Vol. 4 of this edition.
  9. ↑ Notably in George Peele's play The Turkish Mahomet and Hyrin in the Fair Greek [Trans.].
  10. ↑ whore
  11. ↑ to hear, hearing