Letter to Friedrich Engels, February 10, 1858

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 10 February 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
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 10 February [1858]

Dear Engels,

That ass Dana (in a letter which I shall send you later and in which he leaves it UNDECIDED WHETHER OR NOT to honour the bill I drew at the end of December) writes inter alia: 'In the article "Artillery" in speaking of the equipment of the Prussian army, you use the words seam-horses; what are they? I do not find them in any dictionary.' Answer by return, so that I can write to the ass about it on Friday.

I suspected that all was not quite well with you. You really must take care of yourself. You've been overdoing things during the Manchester 'period of Sturm und Drang.[1] More soon.

Your

K. M.

Did Harney DEAR send you also his Independent[2] NONSENSE? -Who do you suppose concocted Schramm's life story? Harney makes out that THE CELEBRATED POET Freiligrath—alongside whom Engels ESQ looks odd—was the publisher of the Revue der Neuen Rheinischen Zeitung[3]

  1. ↑ Marx alludes to the peak of the 1857-58 economic crisis experienced by the Manchester businessmen. He calls it the 'Sturm- und Drangperiode' by analogy with the well-known literary movement in Germany in the last three decades of the 18th century, which reflected the discontent of progressive sections of society with the feudal absolutist systems in German states.—263
  2. ↑ The Jersey Independent
  3. ↑ Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch ökonomische Revue