Letter to Laura Lafargue, May 23, 1886

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To Laura Lafargue in Paris

London, May 23, 1886

My dear Laura,

I think I can to-day announce to you that the affair about the English edition of the Kapital is at last settled. With Kegan Paul and Co. it was impossible to come to a satisfactory conclusion, so we arranged terms with Swan Sonnenschein and Co. I saw Swan Sonnenschein yesterday, with Edward, and there is now only the agreement to be signed formally and then the ms. will go to press at once. Swan Sonnenschein and Co. pay us 10% of gross selling price first 500 copies sold and 12½ % all following copies. First edition to be a library one, at 32/- in 2 volumes: the type to be clichéd at once but so that alterations for 2nd edition can be made within certain limits; then second edition in one volume say from 7/6 to 10/-, and this plan will suit us much better than Kegan Paul’s who would have kept the price up at 28/- and thus excluded the book from general circulation.

As I have 450 pages (of the original German) ready to go to press, and about 200 more that can be got ready in 14 days, and all the rest done in the rough, there is no reason why we should not print 5 sheets a week and have done altogether by middle of August, and the book to be brought out 1st October.

I think Paul does not quite see why they wanted a letter from him on the Paris election for The Commonweal. The people here do not want directly to attack Justice and moreover their assertion would not go half as far as an authoritative statement from Paris. But it’s no great matter, as the League is in a complete muddle through their having let the anarchists creep in. They will have their conference of delegates on Whit Sunday, and then we shall see what comes of it. I cannot make out why Decazeville collapsed so suddenly, especially as Paul, like Napoleon after the burning of Moscow, all at once ceased to supply Cris du Peuple to me, at the critical moment. Is it so absolutely impossible for the Parisian mind to own to unpleasant things that can’t be helped? The victory of Decazeville would have been exceedingly nice, but after all the defeat may be more useful to the movement in the long run. So I do believe, too, that the anarchist follies of Chicago will do much good. If the present American movement — which so far as it is not exclusively German, is still in the Trades Union stage — had got a great victory on the 8 hours question, Trades Unionism would have become a fixed and final dogma. While a mixed result will help to show them that it is necessary to go beyond “high wages and short hours.”

Yours affectionately,

F. Engels