Letter to Karl Marx, February 26, 1851 (2)

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 26 February 1851


First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 1, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38, p. 305
Letter to Karl Marx, February 26, 1851 (1)


TO MARX IN LONDON

[Manchester,] Wednesday [26 February 1851]

Dear Marx,

I have just come upon your 2nd letter. I at once wrote another one to Harney: if you approve of it, send it on to him forthwith.[1] This infamous affair is altogether too much, and he's got to be made aware of the fact. If he allies himself with the others, tant pis pour lui,[2] I CARE THE DEVIL.

Enclosed a letter which looks very odd to me.[3] What's behind the whole business? I don't know to what extent red Wolff[4] is his own master. Besides, there's so much that's crack-brained about the letter that I can't reply to it without having further information. So let me know at once what kind of a DODGE this is and return the piffle to me. One o'clock in the morning.

Your

F. E.

Having no STAMPS, I shan't be able to put any on this letter as I am now going out to post it.

  1. ↑ See this volume, pp. 306, 311.
  2. ↑ so much the worse for him.
  3. ↑ A reference to Ferdinand Wolff's letter sent to Engels from London on 25 February 1851. Wolff wrote about the clearly unrealistic plans to publish, in order to make money, a guide-book in Russian for the Great Exhibition which was to open in May 1851, and asked for Engels' advice.
  4. ↑ Ferdinand Wolff