| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 17 April 1895 |
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 17 April 1895
41 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
My dear Löhr,
Yesterday I sent you cheque for £6.9.9., your share of honorarium for the Klassenkämpfe.[1] To-day I return registered, book post, your translation with thanks and suggestions. In one passage I had to make an alteration, you yourself had marked it as unintelligible, which indeed it was owing to omission of a word in the German text. The alteration is at the back of the page and requires a little frenchifying at your hands. I hope all your trouble will be rewarded by the French reading public!
I have at last succeeded in hunting up the old Rheinische Zeitung of 1842. It was all this time in the Berlin Bibliothek, and our friends in Berlin, who might have known that long ago, only found it out now. Someone in Berlin[3] had a sharper way of doing things than they, and intended publishing Mohrs articles therefrom; we have no right to stop this, as according to German law all anonymous or pseudonymous works become public property after 30 years from date of publication, unless copyright has been previously registered by the author or other qui de droit.[4] However this threatened competition roused our friends all at once; Fischer who manages now the publishing department of the Vorwärts book-selling firm, has at once, at my suggestion,[5] set some one to copy Mohrs chief articles, and will announce that I am going to edit them with introduction, etc. This will probably stop competition. Financially we can hardly expect much, if anything, therefrom, but at all events the articles are safe.
For the Lassalle letters and ulterior plans of republication of old affairs, we shall have to await the fate of the Coercion Bill before the Reichstag; if that passes, I do not see how we can safely proceed to work, at least in Berlin. Maybe Stuttgart may remain more favourable—anyhow qui vivra verra.[6]
I hope you send the Devenir social also to Madrid—our friends there are almost entirely dependent, for foreign reading, on French literature, and it strikes me they get to see more from other sects' publications than from ours. For if the management of the Socialiste is to serve as a pattern, woe be unto us! The Vorwärts announces the complete reorganisation of that illustrious paper, published mit Ausschluss der Oeffentlichkeit',[7] and that Chauvin has remodelled the publishing department—if so, il est tellement chauvin[8] that nobody here has seen a trace of it. But then, the Vorwärts seems to know of France only the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, and if the nouvelles ne sont pas assez bonnes, il les fabrique lui-même.[9]
Many thanks for your news about Sganarelle, they are quite sufficient for the éclairage de ma tête[10] upon the subject.
I had in my head only the Sganarelle of the Médecin volant and Don Juan.
Please tell Paul that if he is in want of a draught composed of L, s, and d (in which case the British philistine spells it draft) he is quite welcome to one.
Kind regards from Louise
Ever yours
F.E.