---
Title: Marx to Laura Lafargue, [London,] 18 December 1871
Description: Marx accepts Lafargue’s offer to advance money for the French edition of Capital, on two conditions, and tells Laura of the second German edition and the coming Russian one.
Author: Karl Marx
Date: 1871-12-18
URL: https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/cartas/originales/1871-12-18%20Marx%20to%20Laura%20Lafargue
---


*Karl Marx to Laura Lafargue in San Sebastián; [London,] 18 December 1871. Written in English. Text after the manuscript, [MEGAdigital](https://megadigital.bbaw.de/briefe/detail.xql?id=M4480214) (MEGA², Section III, letters of 1871, no. 806), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, CC BY-SA 4.0, without the editors’ apparatus. Underlining in italics; deletions omitted; editorial additions in square brackets; […] illegible word(s). [Traducción al español](https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/cartas/1871-12-18%20Marx%20a%20Laura%20Lafargue)*

18 December, ʼ71.

My dear Laura,

In the first instance my best thanks for the offer of Toole. I accept it under two express conditions,

1) that if the enterprise fails, I have to pay the sum advanced with the usual interest upon it,

2) that Toole does not advance more than 2000 fcs. The expression of the Editor that this is only wanted for the beginning seems to me *ominous*. At all events Toole must *stipulate* that his obligations refer only to this “beginning”.

I prefer in every respect a *cheap popular* edition.

It is a fortunate combination that a *Second German edition* has become necessary just now. I am fully occupied (and can therefore write only a few lines) in arranging it, and the French *translator* will of course have to translate the amended German edition. (I shall forward him the old one with the changes inserted). Möhmchen is just trying to find out the whereabouts of Keller. She has written for that purpose to his sister. If he is not to be found (and in due time), the translator of Feuerbach would be the man.

The Russian edition (after the first German edition) will appear January next in St. Petersburg.

Many kisses to you and Schnappy, happy new year to Toole and all.

Kakadou’s old master.
