Works of Karl Marx 1860
Source: MECW Volume 17, p. 14;
Written: 6 February 1860;
First published: in Russian in K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, Moscow, 1934.
In your to-day’s impression you publish, under the title: “The journalistic Auxiliaries of Austria”, a letter full of libellous and scandalous imputations against my person. That letter, purporting to be written at Frankfort on the Main, but probably indited at Berlin, is, in point of fact, but a clumsy amplification of two articles contained in the Berlin National-Zeitung d.d. January 22 and January 25, which paper will have to give account of its’ calumnies before a Prussian Court of Law. The false pretext upon which Vogt launched his libel against me, is the assertion that I am the author of the anonymous German pamphlet: Zur Warnung (a warning), first circulated at London, and afterwards reprinted in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung. From the inclosed print you will see that I have provoked my adversaries to bring this point to a judicial issue before an English Court of Law.
In conclusion, if you do not prefer being sued for libel, I request you to make in your next number an amende honorable for the recklessness with which you dare vilifying a man of whose personal character, political past, literary productions, and social standing, you cannot but confess to be utterly ignorant.
Your obedient servant,
Dr. Karl Marx
February 6, 1860
9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill, London