London, 29 June 1883 

Dear Sorge, 

My evening’s work has been disrupted by callers and this has given 
me a bit of spare time in which to write to you. 

The critique of Henry George, which Marx sent you, is essentially 
a work of such extraordinary skill and stylistically so much all of 
a piece, that it would be a pity to tone it down by including the desul- 
tory marginal comments that appear in English in Marx’s copy.* 
These will always be to hand in case of need later on. Every word of 
the letter he sent you was written, as was usually Marx’s custom on 
such occasions, with an eye to the subsequent publication of the text. 
So you will not be guilty of any indiscretion if you have it printed. Ifit 
is to come out in English, I will translate it for you, since the transla- 
tion of the Manifesto” has again shown that there seems to be no one 
over there who can translate our German, at any rate, into literary, 
grammatical English.”?’ This calls for a writer with practice in both 
languages, practice, what’s more, that is not merely confined to the 
daily press. Translating the Manifesto is awfully difficult; by far the 
best renderings I have seen are the Russian.” 

The 3rd edition of Capital’ is causing me a tremendous amount of 
work. We have one copy in which Marx follows the French edition 
when indicating the emendations and additions to be made,’* but 
all the detailed work remains to be done. I have got as far as ‘Accu- 
mulation’,“ but here it is a case of revising almost completely the en- 
tire theoretical section. On top of that there is the responsibility. For 
to some extent the French translation lacks the depth of the German 
text; Marx would never have written in German in that way. More- 
over the publisher keeps pressing me. 

Until I finish this there can be no question of my going on to Vol- 

* See this volume, p. 14.-° K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist 
Party.-° the third German edition of Volume I of Capital-4 i.e. Part VII of the 
first volume of Capital 

ume IJ. There are in existence at least four versions of the beginning, 
thus often did Marx apply himself to the task, the editing of the defi- 
nitive work having been interrupted on each occasion by illness. How 
the arrangement and conclusion of the last, dating from 1878, will 
agree with the first, which goes back to before 1870, I cannot yet 
say.?7 

Practically everything has been saved from the period up to 1848. 
Not only virtually all of the mss he and I worked on at the time (in so 
far as they haven’t been eaten by mice), but also the correspondence. 
Everything after 1849 is also complete, of course, and, from 1862 on, 
is actually in some sort of order. Also extensive written material on 
the International, sufficient, I imagine, for a full history, though 
I have not yet been able to take a closer look at it. 

There are also 3 or 4 notebooks of mathematical studies. I once 
showed your Adolf? an example of Marx’s new explanation of 
differential calculus. 

Had it not been for the mass of American and Russian material 
(there are over two cubic metres of books of Russian statistics alone), 
Volume II would have long since been printed. These detailed stu- 
dies held him up for years. As always, everything had to be brought 
right up to date and now it has all come to nothing, apart from his ex- 
cerpts which will, I trust, include many of his customary critical com- 
mentaries for use as notes to Volume II. 

The photographs are here °; as soon as I can find time to pack them 
I shall send them to you. But how? Book post precludes any stout 
packing, no parcel post exists as yet,.and to send a small package like 
this per parcels agency would cost a mint of money. Perhaps you 
would let me know how best to go about it. 

I have already read five sheets of the final proof of the 3rd edition; 
the man has promised to send three sheets a week. 

Your 
F. Engels 

I haven’t possibly got time to answer little Hepner’s many long let- 
ters just now. His reports are always of interest to me, intermingled 
though they are with a great deal of personal gossip and written with 
the sense of superiority of the newly disembarked. Meanwhile you 
had better convey my apologies to him. 

@ Adolf Sorge jun.-> See this volume, p. 18. 

Schewitsch has sent me a ‘dignified’ reply and regrets my ‘small- 
mindedness’.* Dignity becomes him. He won’t get an answer. 

Nor will Most, who is, of course, bound to confirm everything 
I have said,” which is exactly what has made him so furious. I believe 
he will find support in sectarian America and sow confusion for 
a time. But it is precisely in the nature of the American movement 
that all mistakes must be experienced in practice. If America’s energy 
and vitality were backed by Europe’s theoretical clarity, you would 
get everything fixed up within ten years. But that is, after all, an his- 
torical impossibility.