Victorian England's Bestselling Author: The Revolutionary Life of G. W. M. Reynolds by Stephen Basdeo

Author:Stephen Basdeo
Format: epub

All of us may disagree with Mr Ernest Jones’s political sentiments—all of us may hold him to be a political enthusiast; but I think the proceedings of this day show that there has been nothing sordid in his conduct, and that, after this proceeding, not a shadow of imputation can rest upon him, nor a shadow of pretence for the imputations made.³¹¹

The proceedings of the case drew the attention of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who were then resident in London. Marx had written several articles for the People’s Paper between 1852 and 1856 and knew Jones well. It is not clear if Marx knew Reynolds personally, but for a variety of reasons Marx distrusted Reynolds, although the two men were both agreed that Jones was the ‘dupe’ of the middle classes,³¹² and Jones’s proposed alliances with the middle classes were the reason that Marx stopped writing for his paper.³¹³ The entire spat between Jones and Reynolds, and the proceedings of the subsequent court case, appears to have amused Marx. The private correspondence between him and Engels reveals what the father of communism thought of the whole affair, and of Reynolds in particular:

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