London, 21 April 1892 

Dear Friend, 

I am sorry that I cannot send you a German copy of the Condition 
of the Working Class.” The book has not been in the book- 

* The Workman’s Times has amalgamated with the former Trade Unionist and Nash, 
of whom you know, has become one of its editors. Thus the influence of Toynbee 
Hall, of which you also know, has gained a footing there. 

« Joseph Burgess-” F.. Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844. 

shops for the past 16 years and even old, second-hand copies are of- 
fered only very rarely in dealers’ catalogues and are extremely dear 
(30-40 marks!). I intend to bring out a new edition as soon as I have 
completed Volume III of Marx’s Capital. 

I am pleased to see from your translation of the English preface in 
the Critica Sociale  that your English has progressed by leaps and 
bounds. However, I wouldn’t advise you to translate the book from 
the English text; the translation is very clumsy and full of Ameri- 
canisms, not all of which I have been able to eliminate. 

Once you have got to the stage of being able to translate English 
rapidly and without a dictionary, let’s hope that Labriola, Turati or 
some other friend will succeed in finding literary work for you so 
that you may at last get away from the poverty and isolation of Be- 
nevento. If only you could leave it and go to Rome or Milan, you 
would undoubtedly find something fairly quickly. 

My preface was not at all easy to translate, containing as it did 
a number of expressions for which no definition, at any rate in the 
sense used by me, is to be found in the dictionary. 

I cannot thank you enough for the assiduity with which you 
translate my works, thereby rendering a great service, not only to 
myself, but also to international relations between Italian and Ger- 
man socialists. You will shortly be getting something else from me, 
namely the English edition of Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus* with 
a long new introduction which is to appear in German in the Neue 
Ae 

From the outset Fantuzzi seemed a sham to me. You would, 
I think, be well-advised to ask him to return the mss and corrected 
proofs, for who knows whether he has any intention of printing 
anything else. 

Very sincerely yours, 
F. Engels