Letter to Friedrich Engels, January 5, 1858

Author(s)	Karl Marx
Written	5 January 1858

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
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40

MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 5 January [1858]

Dear Engels,

Have had your note. You don't say whether you have received my letter enclosing those of Lassalle and Friedländer.^[1] I'd like to be sure that both will be preserved.

As to C, I am IN FACT in a considerable quandary. Nothing more has been sent to Dana since 27 November,^[2] as I finished my own share of it (i.e. the non-military stuff) long ago. If circumstances in Manchester don't admit of your seriously applying yourself to the business this month, I shall have to give it up altogether and tell Dana on some PRETEXT or other that I can't go on with the Cyclopaedia. The fact that I send him long, new lists before polishing off the old ones cannot fail in the end to arouse his suspicions and compromise me. CONSEQUENTLY he's not even answering, let alone sending anything fresh. Nor can work of this kind be remunerative when there are constant hiatuses of a month or more.

STILL, I try to avoid mentioning the matter to you because the last thing I want is to subject you to any strain that might damage your health. YET sometimes it seems to me that, if you could manage to do a little every two days or so, it might act as a CHECK on your junketings which, from what I know of Manchester and AT THE PRESENT EXCITED TIMES, seem to me 'unavoidable' and far from good for you.

Nor can there be any question at present of my taking over the military stuff, which would entail spending a great deal of time at the Museum^[3] to no real effect, for it's absolutely essential that I should finish off my other work^[4] —and it takes up all my time—even if the house should come tumbling about my ears!

So, *my boy, try to come to a definitive resolution—one way or the other*.

Warm regards.

Your

K. M.

↑ See this volume, pp. 227-28
↑ According to Marx's notebook, on 27 November 1857 he sent two articles to The New American Cyclopaedia: Engels' 'Artillery' and his own 'Bugeaud'.—238
↑ the British Museum Library
↑ In the summer of 1857 Marx began to write a series of economic manuscripts in order to sum up and systematise the results of his extensive economic research started in the 1840s and continued most intensively in the 1850s. (In the first half of the 1850s he filled 24 paginated and several unpaginated notebooks with excerpts from the works of bourgeois economists, books of statistics, documents and periodicals.) These manuscripts were preliminary versions of an extensive economic work in which he intended to investigate the laws governing the development of capitalist production and to criticise bourgeois political economy. Marx oudined the main points of this treatise in an unfinished draft of the 'Introduction' (one of the first manuscripts of the series) and in letters to Engels, Lassalle and Weydemeyer (see pp. 298-304, 269-71, 286-87, 376-78). Further economic study prompted Marx to specify and change his original plan. The central place in the series is occupied by the extensive manuscript, Critique of Political Economy (widely known as the Grundrisse), on which Marx worked from October 1857 to May 1858. In this preliminary draft of his future Capital Marx expounded his theory of surplus value. After the first instalment had been prepared for publication in 1859 under the title A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx added several more manuscripts to the series in 1861. The manuscripts of 1857-61 were first published in German by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU in 1939 under the editorial heading Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Rohentwurf). These manuscripts and A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Part One are included in Vols. 29 and 30 of the present edition.—217, 224, 226, 238, 244, 249, 256, 270, 287, 307, 499, 566.

[1] See this volume, pp. 227-28

[2] According to Marx's notebook, on 27 November 1857 he sent two articles to The New American Cyclopaedia: Engels' 'Artillery' and his own 'Bugeaud'.—238

[3] the British Museum Library

[4] In the summer of 1857 Marx began to write a series of economic manuscripts in order to sum up and systematise the results of his extensive economic research started in the 1840s and continued most intensively in the 1850s. (In the first half of the 1850s he filled 24 paginated and several unpaginated notebooks with excerpts from the works of bourgeois economists, books of statistics, documents and periodicals.) These manuscripts were preliminary versions of an extensive economic work in which he intended to investigate the laws governing the development of capitalist production and to criticise bourgeois political economy. Marx oudined the main points of this treatise in an unfinished draft of the 'Introduction' (one of the first manuscripts of the series) and in letters to Engels, Lassalle and Weydemeyer (see pp. 298-304, 269-71, 286-87, 376-78). Further economic study prompted Marx to specify and change his original plan. The central place in the series is occupied by the extensive manuscript, Critique of Political Economy (widely known as the Grundrisse), on which Marx worked from October 1857 to May 1858. In this preliminary draft of his future Capital Marx expounded his theory of surplus value. After the first instalment had been prepared for publication in 1859 under the title A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx added several more manuscripts to the series in 1861. The manuscripts of 1857-61 were first published in German by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU in 1939 under the editorial heading Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Rohentwurf). These manuscripts and A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Part One are included in Vols. 29 and 30 of the present edition.—217, 224, 226, 238, 244, 249, 256, 270, 287, 307, 499, 566.

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