Letter to Florence Kelley, January 12, 1889

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 12 January 1889


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVIII, Moscow, 1940
Published in English: reproduced from the original in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO FLORENCE KELLEY-WISCHNEWETZKY10

IN NEW YORK

London, 12 January 1889

Dear Mrs Wischnewetzky,

No doubt you feel disappointed at my having left America[1] without coming to see you at your sea-side retreat. But I was really too unwell, while in New York, to attempt an excursion of any kind—as you are aware I arrived with a severe cold which Dr Wischnewetzky declared to be bronchitis. This got worse, instead of better, and moreover I got a severe indigestion which made me feel on shore the sea sickness I had not had on the ocean. Under these circumstances, and with a long journey over unknown ground before me, I felt bound to get cured at once and to subordinate everything else to this consideration—I therefore placed myself under the motherly care of Mrs Sorge, did not leave Hoboken for days together, and at last got right again—about the time when we had to leave New York. Had it not been for this, I should certainly have come to pass a day with you; as it was, I had to choose between perfect rest at Hoboken, and an excursion which was almost sure to have upset me for the whole of the journey and maybe laid me up somewhere far out in the country.

The 500 copies[2] from Lee and Shepard have arrived—but too late to be sent out before the Christmas holidays, when nothing but holiday literature is noticed—I have therefore kept them back until now. On Monday the copies to the press will go out and the rest be handed to Reeves. As the boycott of the London Socialists against Marx and myself (exactly like that of English prehistoric old fogies against Morgan)[3] seems still in force, I am curious what the effect will be.

With best wishes for the New Year.

Yours faithfully

F. Engels

  1. ↑ Refers to the voyage of Engels, Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling and their friend Carl Schorlemmer to the United States where they spent over a month - from 17 August to 19 September 1888. They journeyed from New York to Boston and nearby towns, then on to the Niagara Falls and across Lake Ontario to Canada. Engels made this tour incognito, without meeting German Socialists or representatives of the press.
  2. ↑ Karl Marx, 'Speech on the Question of Free Trade'
  3. ↑ Lewis Morgan's book Ancient Society, or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery, through Barbarism to Civilization appeared in London in 1877. Marx and Engels thought highly of this work; in 1884 Engels wrote his The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, In the Light of the Researches of Lewis H. Morgan (see present edition, Vol. 26). Meanwhile, Morgan's works did not win due recognition among British scholars and were ignored for a long time.