Letter to Karl Marx, August 10, 1859

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 10 August 1859


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


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 10 August 1859

Dear Moor,

Just now I'm in such a jam, paying off private debts which have accumulated in respect of the new financial year, that only in the case of direst need shall I be able to advance any money to the Volk during the next few weeks. I neither see nor hear anything of Strohn, but should know at once if he returned to Bradford. If the worst comes to the worst you could always write to Borchardt—I don't see why not. Then you could let me know and, if necessary, Lupus might also drop in on him. I neither see nor hear anything of Borchardt.

Yesterday evening, when about to- write the 2nd article on your book,[1] I was interrupted in such a way as to preclude further work. I shan't be able to make up for lost time today and so the article will have to be put off till next week, greatly to my annoyance.

I was out of town from Saturday to Monday, and on Monday evening found the enclosed scrawl from Duncker.[2] The note I enclose will enable you to obtain the 6 copies of Po and Rhine; send me those you don't need. Freiligrath has had one. It's really high time the fool was forced to adopt a less equivocal position, or at very least to shell out.

Duncker is frankly trying to do me down. Lassalle mentioned 2,000 copies; now he claims to have printed only 1,000. Siebel, who is back here again, tells me that, to judge by his own experience of the pamphlet's success with booksellers, this must be a lie. Que faire?[3]

What do you think of the pretty excuse for failing to advertise your book?

So Mazzini has finally made his diplomatic revelations in a frightful tirade in The Times?[4] All the same, the facts are important and confirm our information and conclusions. Perhaps this will shake Urquhart's view that Mazzini's a RUSSIAN.[5]

Salut.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ F. Engels, 'Karl Marx. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'.
  2. ↑ Engels means Duncker's letter of 3 August 1859, which was in reply to Engels' letter, no longer extant, of 25 July. Duncker wrote that he had sent six copies of Engels' pamphlet Po and Rhine, and would advertise Marx's A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy in German papers several weeks after its publication because, he maintained, this would make for better sales.
  3. ↑ What's to be done?
  4. ↑ G. Mazzini, 'To the Editor of The Times', The Times, No. 23381, 10 August 1859.
  5. ↑ The Urquhartite Free Press had been suggesting that Mazzini was a 'Russian agent'. This idea had been expressed, in particular, in the note 'Kossuth and Mazzini' published in The Free Press, No. 5, 27 May 1859. By Mazzini's 'diplomatic revelations' Engels means his assertions in The Times (No. 23381, 10 August 1859) about the existence of a secret agreement between Bonapartist France, Tsarist Russia and the Austrian Empire on combating national liberation movements in Europe.