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Autographs from a private Japanese collection
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Autograph letter signed ('Karl Marx') to [Dr James M. Williamson], 1 St Boniface Gardens, Ventnor, [Isle of Wight], 6 January 1883
Details
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Autograph letter signed ('Karl Marx') to [Dr James M. Williamson], 1 St Boniface Gardens, Ventnor, [Isle of Wight], 6 January 1883
In English. One page, 179 x 113mm, bifolium. Framed and glazed. Provenance: by descent from the recipient – Christie's, 23 February 1983, lot 61.
'... wrestling as if it were with suffocation ...': one of Marx's last letters. Writing to his doctor at Ventnor, Marx reports the symptoms of his fatal illness and the news of the declining health of his daughter Jenny:
'My intended promenade was yesterday stopped by the rain. When rising this morning ... I got suddenly into a spasmodic cough, gasping, wrestling as if it were with suffocation. Unfortunately, I had used up the Morphia ... What in point of fact surprised me was, that during the course of yesterday my cough was much less troublesome than it had been for the last weeks ... Mere moral agencies, I suppose, do not touch the movements of the mucus. / Yesterday afternoon I had received from Paris a letter with bad news as to the health of Madame Longuet, my oldest daughter. I knew of course that her illness was serious, but I was not prepared to hear that it passes now through a critical phasis'.
Marx had been staying in the resort town of Ventnor since early November in an attempt to recover from the chronic respiratory illness from which he had been suffering since the death of his wife in December 1881. In letters to Engels and his daughter Eleanor on subsequent days, Marx specifically links his severe attack on the morning of 6 January with his anxiety over the health of his daughter Jenny Longuet (1844-1883: she died on 11 January at the age of 38): this may be the meaning of his curious remark about the effect of 'mere moral agencies' on his cough. The Collected Works (vol. 46) records only five later letters than this, to Engels, to Eleanor Marx (3) and Marx's last known letter on 13 January, only a week after this one, writing again to Dr Williamson to announce Jenny's death and his immediate return to London, and ending with the grim remark 'Physical pain is the only "stunner" of mental pain'. Marx died in London on 14 March. Dr James M. Williamson (1849-1901) was the local GP in Ventnor: in addition to Marx, his patients including Winston Churchill and many of the nobility and gentry for whom Ventnor was a popular resort.
Autograph letter signed ('Karl Marx') to [Dr James M. Williamson], 1 St Boniface Gardens, Ventnor, [Isle of Wight], 6 January 1883
In English. One page, 179 x 113mm, bifolium. Framed and glazed. Provenance: by descent from the recipient – Christie's, 23 February 1983, lot 61.
'... wrestling as if it were with suffocation ...': one of Marx's last letters. Writing to his doctor at Ventnor, Marx reports the symptoms of his fatal illness and the news of the declining health of his daughter Jenny:
'My intended promenade was yesterday stopped by the rain. When rising this morning ... I got suddenly into a spasmodic cough, gasping, wrestling as if it were with suffocation. Unfortunately, I had used up the Morphia ... What in point of fact surprised me was, that during the course of yesterday my cough was much less troublesome than it had been for the last weeks ... Mere moral agencies, I suppose, do not touch the movements of the mucus. / Yesterday afternoon I had received from Paris a letter with bad news as to the health of Madame Longuet, my oldest daughter. I knew of course that her illness was serious, but I was not prepared to hear that it passes now through a critical phasis'.
Marx had been staying in the resort town of Ventnor since early November in an attempt to recover from the chronic respiratory illness from which he had been suffering since the death of his wife in December 1881. In letters to Engels and his daughter Eleanor on subsequent days, Marx specifically links his severe attack on the morning of 6 January with his anxiety over the health of his daughter Jenny Longuet (1844-1883: she died on 11 January at the age of 38): this may be the meaning of his curious remark about the effect of 'mere moral agencies' on his cough. The Collected Works (vol. 46) records only five later letters than this, to Engels, to Eleanor Marx (3) and Marx's last known letter on 13 January, only a week after this one, writing again to Dr Williamson to announce Jenny's death and his immediate return to London, and ending with the grim remark 'Physical pain is the only "stunner" of mental pain'. Marx died in London on 14 March. Dr James M. Williamson (1849-1901) was the local GP in Ventnor: in addition to Marx, his patients including Winston Churchill and many of the nobility and gentry for whom Ventnor was a popular resort.
Brought to you by
Eugenio Donadoni
Senior Specialist, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts