Marx à Sigfrid Meyer, le 30 avril 1867

Why then did I not answer you? Because I was the whole time at death’s door. I thus had to make use of every moment when I was capable of work to complete my book, to which I have sacrificed my health, happiness, and family. I hope this explanation suffices. I laugh at the so-called ’practical’ men and their wisdom. If one wanted to be an ox, one could, of course, turn one’s back on the sufferings of humanity and look after one’s own hide. But I should really have thought myself unpractical if I had pegged out without finally completing my book, at least in manuscript.

The first volume of the book will be published by Otto Meissner in Hamburg in a few weeks. The title of the work is: Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. I travelled to Germany to bring over the manuscript, and I am spending a few days with a friend in Hanover on my way back to London.

Volume I comprises the ‘Process of Production of Capital’. As well as setting out the general theory, I examine in great detail the conditions of the English — agricultural and industrial — proletariat over the last 20 years, ditto the condition of Ireland, basing myself on official sources that have never previously been used. You will immediately realise that all this serves me solely as an argumentum ad hominem? I hope that a year from now the whole work will have appeared. Volume II contains the continuation and conclusion of the theory, Volume III the history of political economy from the middle of the 17th th century.