Letter to an Unknown Correspondent, December 11, 1879

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 11 December 1879


First published (facsimile) in: T. n. Bpome, H. C. PeMe30B, A. /JeKaB, TJucbMo r. 77. Epouie. TIocneàmiR KOM- MynapKa 1871 t. Les Anciennes. Tl. Kponom- KUH. Tl. A. Aaepoe, Paris, 1924
Reproduced from the original
Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


MARX TO AN UNKNOWN CORRESPONDENT[1]

IN LONDON

[London,] 11 December 1879

My dear Sir,

Will you come to dinner next Sunday[2] at 2 o'clock?

Yours truly

Karl Marx

  1. ↑ The addressee of this note is not quite certain. The note is to be found in the autograph album belonging to the French revolutionary Gustave Brocher who resided in London from 1876. A facsimile of the note is included in the book Letter to G. P. Brocher. The Last Communard oj 1871. Les Anciennes. P. Kropotkin, P. L. Lavrov (published in Russian in Paris in 1924) and is supplied with a caption that reads: 'A genuine letter by Karl Marx addressed to Professor Brocher in 1879 in English. The author of the letter asks Brocher to dinner.' These facts give reasons to believe that Marx's unknown correspondent was Gustave Brocher.
    There is, however, another hypothesis. In April 1883, Brocher requested Engels to send him Marx's autograph and wrote again on 2 July to thank him for it. Marx's note to the unknown correspondent could have been this autograph.
  2. ↑ 14 December