257 

ENGELS TO F.H. NESTLER & MELLE’S VERLAG °°? 

[Draft] 
{London,] 13 May 1886 

Dear Sirs, 

Greatly flattered though I am by the offer you made me in your 
kind note of the 10th inst., ] regret that I must nevertheless decline it 
on the grounds that I cannot spare the time. 

I am responsible for editing the mss. left by Marx and for turning 
to account all the other papers he left. It is a responsibility that will 
occupy my time for several years to come and must take precedence 
over everything else. 

In addition, I am responsible for revising the translations of our 
works into foreign languages—-an essential task in the majority of 
cases. Not only is there the English translation of Capital, which 
I must now finish and which goes to the printers next month, but 
also a constant influx of mss. of the kind that call for revision, transla- 
tions of shorter works into French, Italian, Danish, Dutch, etc.,* and 
these take up all that remains of my spare time. 

* See this volume, p. 394. 

But once I have put all this behind me, I shall, assuming I live so 
long, first have to turn my mind to the completion, once and for all, of 
my own independent works which have been totally neglected for the 
past three years, 

Among those whose views correspond to my own, my friend Karl 
Kautsky would no doubt be suitable for such a position, especially as 
he now lives here, and I should be glad to give him all the help 
I could. Moreover the relevant English literature, most of it quite un- 
known, is obtainable nowhere save in the British Museum. Yesterday, 
therefore, I took the liberty of informing him of your proposal. But his 
commitments~— apart from editing the Neue Zeit— are so many and 
extend so far ahead that he was unable to authorise my suggesting 
him to you as a candidate. 

I am, as you can see, most interested in your scheme and hence am 
all the sorrier for being unable to participate in its execution. Mean- 
while I would thank you for honouring me with your proposal, and 
remain 

Yours faithfully