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Special pages :
Letter to Paul Lafargue, May 17, 1889
Translated from the French
Extract: Marx Engels on Literature and Art, Progress Publishers, 1976;
Published in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48
To Paul Lafargue at Le Perreux
London, May 17, 1889[edit source]
My dear Lafargue,
Herewith 25 English circulars.
When are you going to send me back the—deciphered—letter from Lyons ? I wouldn’t like to seem negligent or in any way discourteous towards French working men.
Since the Sozialdemokrat and the Berlin Volksblatt have published German translations, there is no further need for a separate edition to be printed over here. In any case, which text ought we to use?
1) French text: The Socialist League of England and the Danish Socialists ... have given their prior assent to the resolutions to be taken.
2) English text: W. Morris of the Socialist League and the Danes, etc., etc.
3) German text in the Berlin translation (probably Liebknecht’s): The Socialist League and the Danes have made their excuses, and the Socialist League has given prior assent to the resolutions, etc., (according to this version the Danes did not assent).
Since the Possibilists have German friends in Paris and English ones over here, it seems not unlikely that they will get wind of these discrepancies. That would be most undesirable, and we can only hope it won’t happen; but you can also see what might result from yet another circular, featuring yourselves as ‘the whole of the French working class’— the translations would again vary, for you may be sure that Liebknecht would change that in the German.
A hundred English circulars go off to America tomorrow.
The Star hasn’t printed the circular yet. Massingham was out when Bernstein called yesterday.
Aveling’s play went off better than I had expected — it is a sketch, very well done, but ends — in Ibsen’s manner — without a solution and the public here is not accustomed to that. This piece was followed by another — by Baby Rose and someone else — a very free English version of Echegaray’s Conflictos entre dos deberes. [The Conflict of Two Duties] This one, being highly spiced with sensationalism, was very well received, although it is heavy and vulgar and to the English taste.
Yours ever,
F. E.