“Confessions” were semi-jocular questionaires that were very popular in Victorian England, and filling them out a common passtime in many families, including Marx’s, where friends and relatives particpated. A number of versions of Confessions belonging to Marx have been preserved.

In the Spring of 1865 Marx stayed with his uncle, Lion Philips in Zalt Bommel (Holland), and his answers to the Confession he completed here is shown in the middle column below. His daughter Jenny kept an album, an image of which is shown, and the answers shown in the right hand column are in Laura Marx’s hand. Where the answers are the same, it is shown only once.

Netchen, or Nannette, was Antoinette Philips, aged 28 at the time, Marx’s cousin and a member of the Dutch section of the Internatrional. Martin Tupper was an English poet who penned trivial moralistic verses. Gretchen is the tragic heroine of Goethe’s Faust. “Keppler” refers to the great German astronomer, Johannes Kepler, and Spartacus was the leader of the slaves’ revolt in ancient Rome.

The formatting is as follows: Question - Answer in 1865 - Answer in Jenny’s album (if available.)

The Quality you like best - Simplicity

 In man - Strength :arm-L::marx-goth::arm-R: 

In Woman - Weakness	:shrug-outta-hecks: 

Your chief characteristic - Singleness of purpose

Your favourite occupation - Glancing at Netchen - Bookworming :read-theory:

The vice you hate most - Servility :soviet-bottom:

The vice you excuse most - Gullibility :kitty-cri-screm:

Your idea of happiness - To fight :stalin-gun-1::stalin-gun-2:

Your idea of misery - To submit :bottom-speak:

Your aversion - Martin Tupper - Martin Tupper, violet powder

Your hero - Spartacus, Keppler

Your heroine - Gretchen

The poet you like best - Aeschylus, Shakespeare - Dante, Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Goethe

The prose writer you like best - Diderot - Diderot, Lessing, Hegel, Balsac

Your favourite flower - Daphne - Laurel

Your favourite dish - Fish

Your Maxim - Nihil humani a me alienum puto [Nothing human is alien to me]

Your motto - De omnibus dubitandum [doubt everything]

Your favourite colour - Red :ussr-cry:

Your favourite Colour of eyes & hair - Black :anarchists:

Your favourite Names - N/A - Jenny, Laura

The character in history you most dislike - N/A - N/A

Karl Marx :marx: