Letter to Franz Duncker, June 22, 1859

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 22 June 1859


First published in International Review of Social History, Vol. X, Part 1, 1965
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO FRANZ DUNCKER

IN BERLIN

Manchester,[1] 22 June [1859]

Dear Sir,

I would request you to send the balance of the fee for my book[2]

without delay to my wife in London.

In the letter you wrote me at the end of May[3] you said that the book would come out and the fee be paid 'next week'. Neither the one nor the other was done until today, 22 June. Your principle would seem to be that a 'strictly scientific work' can never come out too late and, more particularly, that one should wait until such time as the general spread of the war 37° has stimulated a 'strictly scientific' interest.

The same circumstances as have induced you to sanction this further postponement might, perhaps, justify a postponement until 1860, particularly in view of what you say in your letter, namely that, in the case of scientific works in respect of which there is no undertaking as to the time of publication, it is customary for German publishers to place an embargo on their appearance in favour of topical works whenever this would seem to be opportune.

Since it is impossible for me to reply privately to the many inquiries I receive—in connection with these delays—I shall, after waiting a few days longer, issue a public statement.[4]

Yours very faithfully,

Dr K. Marx

  1. ↑ Marx came to Engels in Manchester approximately on 12 June 1859 to discuss questions connected with the publication of Das Volk. From Manchester he went to Scotland to visit former members of the Communist League Peter Imandt and Heinrich Heise, with whom he discussed the financing of the paper. Marx returned to London about 2 July.—459, 462, 470, 472, 497, 520, 538
  2. ↑ A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
  3. ↑ See this volume, pp. 459-60.
  4. ↑ Marx did not have to issue a public statement because his book, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (see present edition, Vol. 30), had appeared, as he soon learned, on 11 June 1859.—463