Letter to Karl Marx, November 26, 1867

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 26 November 1867


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 26 November 1867

Dear Moor,

I have not received the promised letter in quo tua res agebatur.[1]

Meissner's proposal to send out new notices with excerpts from the reviews was what I had in mind to suggest to you as soon as Siebel's articles (i.e. the ones I gave him[2] ) appear. The excerpt from the Zukunft is quite good,[3] but a few more would be even better; he should send you the whole caboodle, and you can then prepare a notice from it. Or if you do not wish to, then he can send it to me and I will do it. I was most struck by the fact that the first notice took up precisely the same space as the one for my little pamphlet,[4] and it had not a word of commentary with it.[5]

If the matter does not turn out differently soon, then I shall have to write—with your consent OF COURSE—to Meissner and offer him articles written by myself for newspapers to be specified by him. I am sure that could not compromise you.

I have just managed to convey Meissner's excuses to Siebel1S1 before the post office closed. They are admittedly persuasive, Siebel was at the time AT A VERY LOW EBB and only recovered in Honnef.

You will have received my letter of Sunday with the returned letters. The tanner[6] returned enclosed, autodidactum integrum, which does not, however, mean that other nations are incapable of bringing forth such a tanner. Philosophy, which in Jakob Böhme's day was just a shoemaker, is making progress when it assumes the shape of a tanner.

How is the carbuncle? I do not like its location, I hope Lafargue has lanced it for you. A stop really must be put to this business.

Has Borkheim paid you the money? He has not written a word to me, although I am guarantor.[7]

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ in which your business was dealt with (see next letter)
  2. ↑ F. Engels, 'Review of Volume One of Capital for the Elberfelder Zeitung and 'Review of Volume One of Capital for the Düsseldorfer Zeitung.
  3. ↑ Enclosed with his letter of 19 November 1867, Otto Meissner sent Marx two clippings (from unidentified newspapers) with new notices on the publication of Volume One of Capital. One of the notices enumerated the main points of the volume, the other gave an excerpt from Engels' review of Volume One that had been published in Die Zukunft, No. 254 (Supplement) of 30 October 1867 (see present edition, Vol. 20).
  4. ↑ F. Engels, The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party.
  5. ↑ The first notice by Otto Meissner on the publication of Volume One of Marx's Capital was published in the Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel und die mit ihm verwandten Geschäftszweige, No. 214 of 14 September 1867. Meissner's notice about Engels' pamphlet The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party was also published in this newspaper, No. 27 of 3 March 1865.
  6. ↑ Joseph Dietzgen
  7. ↑ See this volume, pp. 436, 437, etc.