Marx-Engels Correspondence 1856
Source: MECW Volume 40, p. 57;
First Published: First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 29, . Moscow, 1962
Translated By: Peter and Betty Ross
[Draft]
Dear Sir,
I received your letter d.d. June 14 this morning only, as it had to be sent to me here to Manchester where I shall stay for some weeks.
I have duly considered your proposal, and, on the whole, accede to it.[74] In a matter like this, it is impossible to mention expressly every small particular, to agree upon the size of type pp., neither can I anticipate that any difficulties may arise therefrom, nor from the reservations to make as to ‘copy used’.
I shall therefore provide you in time for next Saturday’s but one’s publication with fully 2 columns of matter and keep you amply supplied every week to that extent.
It would be most convenient to me (if your arrangements admit of it) to receive a remittance say after every fresh weekly publication.
As to your reprinting the papers in your serials, I have no objection, reserving to myself, of course, the right of using the materials, later on, in any way I may see it fit to use them.
As I am sure that you will not suppress historical truth out of prejudice or party-consideration [...] [The sentence is unfinished in the original.]
As to the latter point you will think it only just, that should any points be suppressed, which in my conviction are of decisive historical importance, I shall consider myself obliged to stop the publication.
In thanking you for the serials you were so kind to send me, I cannot but regret that you did not think fit to communicate to me the proof-sheets of the ‘Story of the life of Lord Palmerston’. [58] Sentences, historical data, quotations from Palmerston’s speeches — everything is so disfigured by errata that, in my opinion, the pamphlet, in its present form, is not only useless but positively mischievous.
A few words on the plan of the whole publication [K. Marx, Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century.] will suffice. I do not adopt the usual manner of opening the whole theme by general considerations, but on the contrary commence with facts. [This paragraph is crossed out in the original.]
In contradistinction to the usual manner of historical writers, I shall not commence this publication with general considerations, but with facts. The first chapter will be composed of despatches belonging to different epochs of that century, in order to show up the Russian spirit of English diplomacy during the 18th. [Here the following passage is crossed out in the manuscript: 'There are to follow some English pamphlets belonging to the epoch of Peter I; having thus made the reader familiar 1) [with] the infamies of English diplomacy, 2) with the protest [...]. From one of these despatches you will see how England conspired with Russia to crush [...]. These despatches will form a more eloquent introduction to [...].']
I hope I need not tell you that I am no ‘commercial’ writer and that no [...] [The manuscript breaks off here.]