Marx & Engels & Hedgehogs. A tradition
It is something that has been noted before but perhaps too little remarked upon in recent times. I refer of course to the relationship between Marx and Engels and hedgehogs.
It is not known if the Marx household had a hedgehog but Engels, living with Lizzie Burns in Manchester, certainly did. In Victorian times hedgehogs were associated with a clean house as they ate insects such as black beetles.
Volume 43 of the Collected Works of Marx and Engels (Letters 1868-1870) has exchanges on hedgehogs.
On 3rd January 1868 Jenny Marx wrote to Engels in German. Eleanor Marx then a teenager added a footnote in English:
‘you bad boy, why haven’t you answered my letters, I suppose you and the hedgehog have been on the spree again’
Eleanor was right as Engels, with or without hedgehog, had recorded that he had been over eating and drinking over the holiday period
Writing to Marx a few months later on 10th April 1868 Engels noted that he had a death to announce, ‘the poor hedgehog at a round hole in his blanket, put his head through it, and got so stuck in that he was found yesterday morning. Peace to his ashes and BETTER LUCK TO THE NEXT ONE
Engels reported below that he had been celebrating Paul and Laura Lafargue’s wedding with ‘the dogs’, a tea party for six children and a punch bowl for the adults. The ‘poor hedgehog was made drunk for the last time’
Marx responded to Engels on 11th April 1868 D’Abord, the general condolations, about the departed RIGHT HONOURABLE HEDGEHOG
This rather begs the question as to whether the hedgehogs Megan and myself see in the garden are Marxists. Since they are known to travel around up to two miles at night, one wonders what Suella Braverman and friends might do about it
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