by Xinhua Writers Jin Jing, Gu Zhenqiu
LONDON, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- Like on many other winter days in Britain, Manchester was experiencing a freezing drizzle and occasional strong gusts of wind. But these did not in any way deter the visitors to Chetham's Library, one of the oldest surviving free public libraries in the English-speaking world.
Housed in a light-brown medieval sandstone building in the city, the library, built in 1653, has become a tourist attraction thanks to its collection of some 200,000 books, manuscripts and archives. But what impresses visitors most is a stained oak desk in the window alcove of the Reading Room: Karl Marx's desk.
Fergus Wilde, a 56-year-old librarian, is possibly the most frequent visitor in the Reading Room. Having worked in the library for 20 years, he has made a habit out of sitting at the desk almost everyday studying Marx's ideas and analysis.
"It is a daily privilege," said Wilde. "I have become significantly more interested in Marx's story and Marx's debate as years went by," he told Xinhua on the eve of the 170th anniversary of the publication of "The Communist Manifesto," which was co-authored by Marx and Friedrich Engels.
"I think there is a 'rebirth' of public interest in Marx analysis not only because of its influence on history but also on present times," said Wilde. He has observed that Marx's social critique has enjoyed a revival in the wake of the global financial crisis, which was essentially triggered by capitalist greed and a resurgence in neo-liberalism.
"Our economy has always struggled from crisis to crisis. It has been demonstrated convincingly over the last 30 years, that the gap between the rich and poor people has been widening, and also (that) between the rich and poor countries. Some questions will have to be asked sooner or later," he said.
"Even if you consider the capitalist world has produced paramount wealth, you have to ask: Can that wealth be justified and evenly shared?" he said.
Chetham's Library was the place where Marx and his friend Engels frequently met and studied together during the summer of 1845, one year after they met in Paris.
During this period, Engels lived in Manchester, working for his father's cotton thread manufacturing firm in nearby Weaste, while Marx, who lived in London, was a frequent visitor to Manchester.
The research they conducted during their visits to the library played a "crucial" role in forming their theories and arguments and ultimately led to their work "The Communist Manifesto" that was published in late February 1848, said Wilde.
This library had a "disproportionately big impact" on Marx and Engels' works, said Wilde, adding that the two German philosophers studied the capitalist means of production using Engels's family firm as a case for their study. It was during this time that Engels finished his landmark book "The Condition of the Working Class in England."
Apparently, Chetham's Library provided the friends with a lot of inspiration.
"Marx and Engels were very good library users. They didn't write in the books and they didn't carve their names on the desk, but they did reminisce to each other," Wilde said.
Writing to Marx many years later in 1870, Engels said: "During the last few days I have again spent a good deal of time sitting at the four-sided desk in the alcove where we sat together twenty-four years ago. I am very fond of the place. The stained glass window ensures that the weather is always fine there."
This letter is edited in the German-version "Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Excerpts and Notes, July to August 1845" ("Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels Exzerpte und Notizen Juli bis August 1845") published in 1988.
Apart from the stained glass windows, which were damaged by a storm in the winter of 1875 and replaced by plain glass, the desk and the alcove remain almost unaltered.
The original books Marx was reading at the time can still be found on the library shelves, such as Frederick Morten Eden's "The State of the Poor" (1795) and Thomas Gisbourne's "Inquiry into the Duties of Men in the Higher Ranks and Middle Classes of Society in Great Britain" (1795).
Visitors, just like Wilde, can sit by the desk and ponder over the issues that the two great thinkers possibly argued over more than 170 years ago.
Byron Tyrer became a volunteer guide in the library after he retired six months ago. "We live in a peculiar time and there is a growing interest in Marx's analysis and in this library. Some visitors came from across half the world," he said.
Chloe Maria, a French visitor, stopped by the desk for quite a while, attentively flipping through the copies of books on the desk read by Marx and Engels.
"Just picturing them sitting here just is amazing," said Maria. "Obviously something is seriously wrong with our society and we need to find the answers. Here might be one of the places."
But to Wilde, Chetham's Library is more like home as he visits it almost everyday.
"There is little doubt that Marx was the father of an extremely valuable school of interpretation of history which keeps reemerging," he said.
