SELECT CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
209proposal to publish in separate instalments as 'in this form the work will
lie more easily accessible to the working class, and this consideration is
more important to me than any other'.^29
In February 1872 the contract with Lachatre was signed. But the book
was to be published at the author's expense. Applying to his cousin August
Philips for financial help, Marx received the answer that, 'if necessary, I
din ready to assist you, as a friend and relation, even with money; but
I'm not doing it for your political and revolutionary aims'.^30 Roy's work,
however, did not come up to Marx's high expectations and he found
himself having to rewrite whole sentences and even pages. In the event
die first instalment did not appear until May 1875 ~ owing to delays
1 uused partly by Marx's health, partly by Roy's slowness, and partly by
I K hatre's desire to publish a photo of Marx in his edition (thus stealing
1 march on the Russian publishers who had had their photo banned by
die Government, on the grounds that it would imply too much respect
loi Marx's personality). It had cost him, said Marx, 'more trouble than a
whole fresh composition of the book in French';^31 and he wrote in the
postscript to this edition: 'it possesses a scientific value independent of
the original and should be used even by readers who are competent in
< icrman'.^32
Fven before the French edition was finished Marx received urgent
letters from his German and Russian publishers asking for Volume Two.
Ingels assured Kugelmann in October 1876 that 'Volume "Two will be
1.1 1 kled in a few days'.^33 Two years later Marx could only vaguely hope
1l1.1t it might be finished 'by the end of 1879'.^34 In April 1879 Marx
1'nplained the situation in a long letter to Danielson. He had just received
Information that the worsening political situation would prevent his
H I ond volume from being published in Germany. He almost welcomed
tin news, for there were grounds other than health reasons that compelled
delay. Firstly, England was going through an economic crisis that differed
Interestingly from previous ones and 'it is therefore necessary to watch
tin present course of things until they are ripe before I can "digest"
1 linn "productively", I mean "theoretically" '.^35 Secondly, as Marx frankly
- <pl.nned, 'the mass of materials that I have, not only from Russia, but
alio liom the United States, etc., make it pleasant for me to have a
pieiext" for continuing my studies instead of winding them up finally
loi the public'.^36
I >aniclson himself had been supplying Marx with numerous books on
Hiiv.i.in agricultural economics since the freeing of the serfs - books that
both I'.ngels and Jenny sometimes felt like burning. This was a subject
ili.it occupied Marx's mind particularly in the years 1876 and 1877. As
I duels wrote, Marx after 1870 'studied agronomics, agricultural con-