V. I.

Lenin

61

To:   HIS MOTHER AND HIS SISTER ANNA

November 22, 1898

Today, Mother dearest, I have to write a long business letter to Anyuta. For this reason I shall not write to you,
especially as Nadya has already compiled a very lengthy
description of our life here and I have nothing to add to it.
Her story is true in the main—only there is some exaggeration about my work on the
“markets”. [1]

Yours,

V. U.

Ask Mitya to send Pamyatnaya knizhka Tulskoi gubernii [2] to Alexei Pavlovich Sklyarenko as soon as possible; I don’t
know his address.

Anyuta,

I received two of your letters together—dated November
1 and 4. There is a good side to the publication having been
handed over to Vodovozova; at any rate, the work is certain
to be done. Her account for the Studies seems to be perfectly correct and the smallness of the fee is due to the small
number of copies. [5] I cannot, of course, accept such a fee
for the “markets”. I intend to take advantage of
Vodovozova’s offer (if you see her, convey to her, of course, many
thanks from me) to publish my “markets”—as for the financial conditions, I leave it to you (if it will not be too much trouble) to discuss that with her; I do not know which
is better, a definite fee or “all the net profit”. The more
advantageous of those two methods of payment must, of course, be chosen, especially as I do not need the money in
a hurry. The most important of the conditions attending
publication is to ensure perfectly good proof-reading. Unless
this is done it really is not worth while publishing anything .
The proof-reading of the Studies was very bad. Apart from
those misprints distorting the meaning [3] that I sent you, [6]
there are numerous minor ones that comrades are already
complaining to me about. It is absolutely necessary to have
a very intelligent, professional proof-reader; that must be
made an absolute condition and I am even willing to pay
such a proof-reader double in view of the author’s being
unable to read the proofs himself. This is especially true
of tables—there are always mistakes galore, and in the “markets” there are a lot of tables. Then (even if you have
the best proof-reader) I must have copies of the final page
proofs sent to me immediately, signature by signature, and I will send you a list of misprints. The delay in issuing
the book because of this will be (if they are sent punctually)
at most a month; that is no great misfortune as long as the
book is printed decently. With regard to the date of issue—
the work can begin now (we have the third chapter in a fair
copy and in a few days I shall finish the fourth, that is,
half of the book; the second half is much easier, so I can
confidently undertake to send to Moscow the last chapter by
February 15, or even earlier); this would be particularly
convenient for me, because I would have time to send in not only the
misprints to the first signatures but perhaps some more
important changes. The format and the type should provide
for about 2,400 letters to a page; the whole work would
then be no more than 30 signatures, say 500 pages in round
figures (more pages would probably be too many and would
be bulky for the reader). Lastly, with regard to the chart
in Chapter II—special attention will be needed to make sure there are no mistakes in it. Please talk to Vodovozova about all this and answer me as soon as possible after you
receive this letter. We shall send Chapters III and IV when
they are finished, in about a fortnight.

Please send Manyasha another three copies of the Studies .
Alexander
Leontyevich’s [4] address is Gudina’s House, Opernaya Street, Archangel. I have sent them to all the
comrades here. Another copy must be sent to the Samaran who
writes in Nauchnoye Obozreniye .

Out of the third of the fee you have received, a half will
cover the money sent by Mitya for Yelizaveta Vasilyevna.
From the other half, please send a half to Kalmykova’s warehouse (I have run into debt there, and I order a lot
of things) and use the remainder to subscribe to journals
and newspapers for 1899; it is time, especially for the
foreign publications.

Russkiye Vedomosti for one year— 8 rubles 50 kopeks (pay for ten months for me);
Russkoye Bogatstvo for one year— 9 rubles
Mir Bozhy for one year— 8 rubles
Niva for 1899 — 7 rubles
Frankfurter Zeitung for the first quarter of 1899— 4 rubles 70 kopeks
Archiv für soziale Gesetzgebung und Statistik , herausgegeben von Heinrich Braun. For 1899— 12 marks .

We here greatly appreciate newspapers and journals, especially those that arrive in good time; that is why I
ask you to subscribe as early as possible.

Yours,

V. U.

Regards to all.

( Blos has been given to Basil, we no longer have it.)