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Title: Engels to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky, London, 25 February 1886
Description: Engels sends the rest of the revised translation with the appendix, objects to an appeal made to the Socialist Labor Party and declines further revisions for the time being.
Author: Friedrich Engels
Date: 1886-02-25
URL: https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/cartas/originales/1886-02-25%20Engels%20to%20Florence%20Kelley-Wischnewetzky
---


*Letter from Friedrich Engels to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky in Zurich, London, 25 February 1886. Written in English. Text from: F. A. Sorge (ed.),* Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere *(Stuttgart, 1906), pp. 212-214. [Spanish translation](https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/cartas/1886-02-25%20Engels%20a%20Florence%20Kelley-Wischnewetzky)*

London, February 25th 1886.

Dear Mrs. Wischnewetzky.

To day I mailed to you, *registered*, the rest of the Ms. with my — introduction or post-script — according to where it may suit you to place it. I believe the title had better be a simple translation: The Condition of the Working Class in England *in 1844* etc.

I am glad that all obstacles to publication have been successfully overcome. Only I am sorry that Miss F. . . . has applied to the Executive of the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei in New York, as appears from their report of meeting in “Der Sozialist”, New York, 13th Febr. Neither Marx nor myself have ever committed the least act which might be interpreted into asking any Workingmen's Organization to do us any personal favor — and this was necessary not only for the sake of our own independence but also on account of the constant bourgeois denunciations of “demagogues who coax the workmen out of their hard-earned pennies in order to spend them for their own purposes”. I shall therefore be compelled to inform that Executive that this application was made entirely without my knowledge or authority. Miss F. . . . no doubt acted in what she thought the best way, and this step of hers is in itself no doubt perfectly admissible; still, if I could have foreseen it, I should have been compelled to do everything in my power to prevent it. —

The revision of your translation has delayed that of the English translation of “Das Kapital” by three weeks — and at a most critical period of the year too. I shall set about it tonight and it may take me several months. After that the German 3rd volume must be taken in hand; you see, therefore, that for some time it will be impossible for me to undertake the revision of other translations, unless few and far between and of small volume. I have at this moment waiting here an Italian translation of Marx' “Lohnarbeit und Kapital” which must wait some weeks at least. But if you will translate that into English (it was recently republished in Zurich) and will not be too pressing for time, I shall be glad to revise it, and you cannot have a better popular pamphlet than that. My Entwicklung Aveling intends to translate, and as the subject is in part rather difficult, I could not well give it to any one except he be here on the spot, accessible to verbal explanation. As to my Anti-Dühring I hardly think the English-speaking public would swallow that controversy and the hostility to religion which pervades the book. However we may discuss that later on, if you are of a different opinion. At present Marx's posthumous manuscripts must be dealt with before any thing else.

The semi-Hegelian language of a good many passages of my old book is not only untranslateable but has lost the greater part of its meaning even in German. I have therefore modernized it as much as possible.

Yours very truly

F. Engels.