Dear Friend,

Would you be so kind as to publish the following statement in your newspaper and to send me a copy of the issue in question.

Yours very sincerely,

Karl Marx TO THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE NEUE FREIE PRESSE

Under the heading “A Socialist Soirée”, signed W.,’ the Vienna Presse carries a feature article in which I have the honour to figure. W. met me, so he says,at a soirée at Herzen’s house. He even recalled the speeches that I made there.

A firm opponent of Herzen, I have always refused to meet him, and have therefore never seen the man in my life.

I doubt whether the imaginative W. has ever been to London. As a matter of fact, there are no “marble steps” there, except in the palaces, though W. even found some in Herzen’s “corrace”!

I hereby challenge the imaginative W., whom the laurels of the Paris-Journal and similar police newspapers” will not allow to sleep, to name himself.

Karl Marx London, June 30, 1871