Karl Marx: A biography by David McLellan

LONDON (^255)
Phenomenology: I have read the 'Preface' and that's where the general
idea can be found.^191
Advising Marx to make the book a long one by padding out the 'History',
Engels told him bluntly: 'Show a little commercial sense this time.'^192 In
early December came Bonaparte's coup d'etat which made Engels anticipate
difficulties with Lowenthal, and though Marx stayed in contact with
the publisher until well into the following year, nothing came of the
negotiations. Even Kinkel was eager to get a 'positive foundation' from
Marx's 'Economics' and Lassalle proposed the founding of a company
that would issue shares to finance the publication; but Marx doubted the
success of the venture and anyway did not wish to make public his lack
of resources. In January 1852 he wrote asking Weydemeyer to find him
a publisher in America 'because of the failure in Germany'.^193 By this
time he had already abandoned work on his 'Economics'. He worked on
his notebooks for a short period in the summer of 1852 and, as a last
hope, submitted to the publisher Brockhaus the project of a book to be
entitled Modern Economic Literature in England from 1830 to 1852. Brock-
haus rejected it; and Marx, under the pressures of poverty, work for
the Cologne Communist Trial and increasing journalistic commitments,
abandoned his 'Economics' for several years.
V. JOURNALISM
'The continual newspaper muck annoys me. It takes a lot of time, dis-
perses my efforts and in the final analysis is nothing. However indepen-
dent one wishes to be, one is still dependent on the paper and its public
especially if, as I do, one receives cash payment. Purely scientific works
are something completely different "^94 This was Marx's view of his
journalism in September 1853 when he had already been writing for
the New York Daily Tribune for a year. The invitation to write for the
newspaper had come from its managing editor, Charles Dana. Dana
had a strong and independent personality: brought up by uncles on the
bankruptcy of his father and the death of his mother, he entered Harvard
on his own merits, but was forced by lack of means to leave after a year.
In 1841 he joined the colony at Brook Farm, which adopted Fourierism
and became a 'phalanstery' while he was there, and was one of its most
effective members. When the 'phalanstery' was destroyed by fire, Dana
was engaged by Horace Greeley as editor of the New York Daily Tribune.
The Tribune, founded in 1841 , was an extraordinarily influential paper
and the Weekly Tribune, composed of selections from the daily editions,