In reply to your letter of the — I beg to say that since my last I 
have compared your article with the original Le Capital. 

I find that it is a very imperfect translation of Ch. XXIII (23) 
Réproduction simple, and that the translator has made _ very 
important mistakes in consequence of want of sufficient acquain- 
tance, partly with the leading ideas of Le Capital, partly with 
French grammar. 

It must appear to me very unfair that a single chapter should be 
taken out of the middle of a closely-reasoned scientific work and 
without a word of introduction be presented to the public. 

When it comes to the publishing of translations of entire 
chapters of my father’s works, the question of copyright crops up. 
Please do not forget that I am responsible for their share of that 
copyright to other people and to my father’s memory for the way 
his works are done into English. Upon this point I reserve all my 
rights. 

However I will permit you to publish another chapter in your 
next issue, on condition that you head it with a few lines stating 

1) That the last was Ch. 23 and the present is Ch. so and so, 
out of Le Capital, published in Paris 1872.°° 

2) That the translation is yours; and 

3) That you inform me which further chapters you intend to 
translate after which I shall consider whether I can give you my 


a The draft was written in Engels’ hand on behalf of Eleanor Marx-Aveling.— 
Ed. 


590 Appendices 


permission to do so, which will very materially depend upon the 
character of the translation itself. 

Your allusion to a poem of V. Hugo is entirely irrelevant, 
considering that it is well known that V. Hugo could not write a 
line of English and that my father has been an English author for 
more than thirty years.