Letter to Friedrich Engels, February 2, 1861

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 2 February 1861


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 3, Berlin, 1930
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

London, 2 February 1861

Dear Frederick,

Yesterday I got the enclosed note from Freiligrath[1] which doesn't make matters any more agreeable. You must write and tell me at once what I ought to do.

In fact, I've been so BOTHERED from all sides that my head is going round and round and, on top of that, there is the unpleasantness of having to annoy you with all my petites misères.

I have written to Dana, who is definitely in the WRONG legally, but with little prospect of success.[2] The fellows know that one needs them and that they, for their part, don't need one at this moment.

Weren't you going to send me the Nazione—certain letters of Mazzini's? Forgotten? You will shortly be getting the confiscated issue of the Courrier du Dimanche from me.

Bucher maintains—he asked Borkheim to tell me—that his review will still appear in the Allgemeine Zeitung. You will doubtless have seen that at every opportunity the scoundrelly Blind brings his name before the public as an homme d'état.

The rotten book business has cost me more than £4 all in all. What a strange fate this LIBRARY has![3]

No news from Siebel? His connections certainly seem to be exceedingly limited.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

Thimm told Petsch a day or two ago that Herr Vogt has been the object of some particularly malicious abuse in Manchester. Brass, expressly for his own personal satisfaction, has ordered new type to be cast so that Herr Vogt can be advertised in an even more conspicuous manner. Given the large number of Swiss in Manchester, is it not possible to sell at least 1 COPY of the Grenzpost there?

  1. ↑ See this volume, pp. 252, 258.
  2. ↑ ibid., p. 252.
  3. ↑ This refers to Marx's private library which he had collected in the 1840s and left in the safekeeping of his friend, Communist League member Roland Daniels, in Cologne in May 1849, when expelled by the Prussian authorities. Shortly before being arrested in 1851, Daniels hid the books in the warehouse of his brother, a wine merchant. Acquitted at the Cologne Communist trial in late 1852, he came out of prison a gravely sick man. He died of tuberculosis in August 1855. At the beginning of 1856 Daniels' widow took steps to send the books to Marx, but owing to the high transportation costs and other problems, it was not until December 1860 that he received his library, with some books missing.
    A list of the books of this library, compiled by Daniels and with notes by Marx, has been preserved.