Letter to Pyotr Lavrov, September 3, 1871

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 3 September 1871


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVI, Moscow, 1935
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


ENGELS TO PYOTR LAVROV

IN PARIS

London, 3 September 1871

Dear Mr Sidorov,[1]

Thank you for your good offices in the matter of the Gazette des Tribuneaux, which reaches me regularly, and also for the maps[2] ; having consulted Rozwadowski, I think that I shall indeed have to write to a German bookseller. Rozwadowski, incidentally, has secured a post as schoolmaster in a boarding-school, unpaid, but with laundry, board and lodging up till December—he cannot fail to learn English there, after which it will be easy to find him something else.

As to the books, it now transpires that they have not yet reached the second-hand bookshops and must be paid for at publication prices with discounts ranging from 16 to 20 per cent. Let me know by return whether you authorise me to buy them on these terms, in which case you will receive them in a few days' time; they are as follows:

Lecky, Rationalism" Tylor, Primitive Culture Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation'6

Maine, Ancient Law Ditto, Rural Communities,'' and, if it is to be had for 10/- or less,

Buckle, History of Civilization. Someone has just interrupted me, and so I am obliged to close this letter.

Yours ever,

F. Engels

[3] [4] [5]

Williams' two daughters[6] have arrived here, the third is in Spain with her husband.[7]

  1. ↑ Lavrov's pseudonym used by Engels in their correspondence.
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 193.
  3. ↑ c W. E. H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe.
  4. ↑ d J. Lubbock, The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man.
  5. ↑ e H. S. Maine, Village communities in the East and West.
  6. ↑ Jenny and Eleanor Marx; Williams was Marx's pseudonym.
  7. ↑ Laura and Paul Lafargue