MARX TO FERDINAND LASSALLE?” 

London, 11 March 1858 
9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, 
Haverstock Hill 

Dear Lassalle, 

I was confined to bed when your letter arrived, [hence]* the 
delay in replying. Now I am ati ricut again. D’abord,” whatever the 
outcome of the necotiation ini[tiated] by you, whether successful 
or otherwise, I would like to express my warmest thanks for your 
exertions whose value is doubled by the fact that you yourself 
were in poor health. I hope that you are now perfectly well again. 
Friend Quételet* has calculated that, after Petersburg and Madrid, 
Berlin is the most insalubrious capital in Europe—as, indeed, 
having lived there 5 years, I personally can confirm by comparison 
with London, Brussels and Paris. 

But to come to business. You will, perhaps, permit me to reply 
to question 4 first and then proceed in reverse. 

1. The publisher shall have the right to cease publication on 
receipt of the second instalment, always provided I am given due 
notice. A proper contract, assuming he intends to publish more 
than one instalment, shall not be concluded before delivery of the 
third. 

2. As regards the fee, I shall, if necessary, agree to a minimum 
of 0 for the first instalment, for while I certainly cannot write the 
whole work gratis, I am even less prepared to see its publication 
come to grief over the question of money. I have no idea what 
authors are paid in Germany. But if you do not think 30 talers 
per sheet is too much, that is what you should ask,—less, if 
you think it excessive. Once the thing has been launched we 
shall see on what conditions the publisher can and will go on 
with it. 

4 Ms. damaged. - > First of all - © A. Quételet, Sur l'homme et le développement de ses 
facultés.... Marx used an English translation of the book, A Treatise on Man and the 
Development of the Faculties. - 4 This refers to the large economic work planned by 
Marx. Only one instalment was published. It appeared under the title A Contribution to 
the Critique of Political Economy in 1859. 

3. Minimum length of the instalments say 4 sheets; maximum 6. 
It is to be desired, of course, that each instalment should form 
a relative whole. But the separate sections vary greatly in 
length. 

Whatever the circumstances, the first instalment would have to 
constitute a relative whole and, since it lays the foundations for all 
that follows, it could hardly be done in under 5 or 6 sheets. But 
that is something I shall find out when I come to finish it off. It 
contains 1. Value, 2. Money, 3. Capital in General (the process of 
production of capital; process of its circulation; the unity of the 
two, or capital and profit; interest). This constitutes a pamphlet in 
its own right. As you yourself will have discovered from your 
economic studies, Ricardo’s exposition of profit conflicts with his 
(correct) definition of value, thus giving rise among his followers 
either to a complete departure from his basis, or to the most 
objectionable eclecticism. I believe that I have cleared the matter 
up. (On closer examination the economists will, to be sure, find 
that ALTOGETHER IT IS A DIRTY BUSINESS.) 

4. As to the total number of sheets I am myself very much in the 
dark since, in my notebooks, the material for the work is entirely 
in the form of monographs,” many of which go into a wealth of 
detail that would disappear in the course of compilation. Nor is it 
my intention to elaborate to an equal degree all the 6 books into 
which I am dividing the whole, but rather to give no more than 
the broad outline in the last 3, whereas in the first 3, which contain 
the actual nub of the economic argument, some degree of 
amplification will be unavoidable. I hardly think that the whole 
can be done in under 30 or 40 sheets. 

With kind regards. 

Your 
K. M. 

PS. If the publisher is agreeable, I could arrange for him to 
have the first instalment asout the end of May.