Letter to Pasquale Martignetti, August 22, 1883

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 22 August 1883


First published in La corrispondenza di Marx e Engels con italiani. 1848-1895, Milano, 1964
Printed according to the original. Translated from the Italian
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO PASQUALE MARTIGNETTI

IN BENEVENTO

England, Eastbourne, 22 August 1883
4 Cavendish Place

Dear Citizen,

Please excuse my delay in replying to your letter of 25/6 and your postcard of 30/7.[1] The need to finish in a short time the text of the 3rd German edition of Capital[2] forced me to suspend all correspondence.

I do not know much about Ahn's method, and the dictionary you mention is entirely unknown to me. In order to learn a language the method I have always followed is this: I do not bother with grammar (except for declensions and conjugations, and pronouns) and I read, with a dictionary, the most difficult classical author I can find. Thus I began Italian with Dante, Petrarch and Ariosto, Spanish with Cervantes and Calderon, Russian with Pushkin. Then I read newspapers, etc. For German, I think the first part of Goethe's Faust might be suitable; it is written, for the most part, in a popular style, and the things which would seem difficult to you would also be difficult, without a commentary, for a German reader.

For the works of Marx, etc., you could approach the offices of the Sozialdemokrat, Hottingen-Zurich, Switzerland; it is the official organ of the German workers' party.

Thank you for the copies of the translation, which reached me in good condition, and also for kindly sending your photograph, in return for which I enclose mine.

Yours with regards,

F. Engels

The normal London address is fine; I am here at the seaside for a few weeks.

  1. ↑ In a letter to Engels of 25 June 1883 Pasquale Martignetti thanked the recipient for endorsing his Italian translation of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (see Note 70). Expressing his regret that he had not been able to translate from the German original, Martignetti asked Engels to advise him of a textbook which might help him to learn German; he also requested Engels to let him know where he might find works by Marx, Engels and other authors which the recipient could recommend as reading material. On 30 July Martignetti informed Engels that, as the latter had requested (see this volume, p. 37), he was sending him copies of the Italian translation of the above-mentioned work by Engels which had just appeared in Benevento.
  2. ↑ the first volume