Letter to Hermann Schluter, September 23, 1885

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 23 September 1885


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVII, Moscow, 1935
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO HERMANN SCHLÜTER

IN HOTTINGEN-ZURICH

London, 23 September 1885

Dear Mr Schlüter,

I. You will have received all the proofs of the Dühring.20S They were sent off from here on the 13th and 14th. If anything is missing kindly let me know; the type-setting was such that there could be absolutely no question of its being printed unless corrected by me.

The last clean proof to arrive here was No. 14. I await the remainder for the list of printing errors. Enclosed a provisional list which corrects a great deal of nonsense, much of which I myself had doubtless allowed to stand. However I shall go through the whole thing once again.

Herewith also and at long last the preface[1] which caused me much toil and sweat. In the first place there were numerous interruptions. But then again my knowledge of natural science was very rusty and there was much I had to look up.

II. Please send me if possible (along with the preface) proofs (in duplicate) of Marx vor den Geschwornen,a or at any rate clean proofs for the list of printing errors. The original edition is not devoid of bad errors; indeed, the worthy compositors sometimes exercise their minds more than the author would wish.

III. 'Preface',[2] etc., to the Communist Trialb will follow this week provided there are no interruptions.

IV. Immediately after that I shall put Lupus'[3] biography to rights for the Schlesische Milliarde as well as anything else appertaining to it. This will follow in a few days.

Please send me clean proofs of everything as well as proofs of my prefaces, etc. Also 12 copies of each of the above.

I am also seeing to Marx's photograph. Then I shall get on with re-writing the Peasant War2 ' 3 as soon as I have got the revision of the French 4 4 4 and English translations6 off my back.

Now that I am back home[4] the correction of proofs will be attended to speedily and punctually.

I have had a good few bones to pick with Mr Meissner about the get-up of the 2nd volume of Capital. In the preface and text the type is all jumbled up, although I had already gone a long way towards sorting this out in the proofs, so far as it was possible to do so. No excuse for that. Moreover, there are 500 copies with no index at all. I enclose one copy for the archives.

D f is incorrigible.[5] His appeal to his papa is touching[6] ; the old man will take a stick to him.[7]

With best wishes,

Yours,

F. Engels

a Karl Marx vor den Kölner Geschwornen - b F. Engels, 'On the History of the Communist League'. - c K. Marx, Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne.

  1. ↑ Engels' preface to the second edition of Anti-Dühring.
  2. ↑ The reference is to the third congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany which was held illegally in Copenhagen from 29 March to 2 April 1883, with 60 delegates taking part. The congress was to work out the German Social Democrats' political line on the social reforms being carried out by the bourgeois government, to decide on the party's tactics and the position to be taken by Der Sozialdemokrat, its printed organ, given the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany (see Note 37). The congress unanimously called on the party to expose the demagogy of Bismarck's domestic policy, endorsed the stance of the main printed organ and the general line of conduct of the parliamentary group (see Note 49). It further made it incumbent on every party member, including the Social-Democratic representatives in the Reichstag, to observe party discipline and help carry out party decisions (see also Note 16).
  3. ↑ Wilhelm Wolffs ' of the first volume of Capital (see also Note 56)
  4. ↑ Engels spent his holidays on the island of Jersey from 14 August to 14 September 1885.
  5. ↑ A hint that Louis Viereck was the illegitimate son of Emperor William I of Germany. Engels is referring to Viereck's speech on 8 August at a workers' meeting in Munich in which he said that the emperor would give the workers much more if he knew how poorly they lived. The Munich Social Democrats protested at Viereck's speech (see Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 34, 20 August 1885). In his reply, published in the Munich-based Deutsches Wochenblatt, No. 30, 30 August and Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 36, 3 September 1885, Viereck, to all intents and purposes, supported Bismarck's social reform (see Note 312).
  6. ↑ Louis Viereck (Viereck = square in German)
  7. ↑ See this volume, pp. 323-24.