Revolution and counter-revolution in Germany - Frederick Engels

Written: 1851-1852;
First Published: New York Tribune, 1851-1852, as book, 1896;
Edited: Eleanor Marx Aveling;
Transcribed: Sally Ryan 1999;
HTML Markup: Sally Ryan 1999;
Proofed and corrected: Mark Harris 2010.

Marx was asked in the summer of 1851 by Charles Anderson Dana, managing editor of the New York Tribune, to write a series of articles on the German Revolution. Founded in 1842 by Horace Greeley, the Tribune was the most influential paper in the United States at the time. These articles were written by Engels at the request of Marx, who was then busy with his economic studies and felt, besides, that he had not yet attained fluency in English. Engels wrote the articles in Manchester, where he was employed, and sent them on to Marx in London to be edited and dispatched to New York. Thus, although Engels must be rightly considered their author, Marx took a big part in the preparation, for in their almost daily correspondence the chief points were discussed thoroughly between them. The articles appeared under Marx's name, and it was not until much later, when the correspondence between the two life-long collaborators became available, that the true circumstances were revealed. The contributions to the Tribune thus begun continued until 1862, and though Marx himself wrote most of the articles after 1852, Engels continued to help his friend by writing for him important articles on political and military affairs. When Marx's daughter, Eleanor, wrote the preface to the 1896 edition she was still under the impression that Marx had written the series.
[Publisher's Note to the 1969 edition published in London by Lawrence & Wishart]