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Christoph Marx
Schulstrasse 17
4436 Oberdorf,

January 29, 1978

 
Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky
78 Hartley Avenue
Princeton, N.J. 08540

Dear Velikovsky,

I am glad and grateful that you have allowed Jan to carry on with the necessities of business. I hope this long hoped for running information about current topics may be kept up by him.

But learning from events and having concluded our first deal, so to say, I wish in time to be prepared for future duties. When. I left you, I hope I had imparted to you, and your family, the assurance of being able to creatively take care of such matters as you might entrust me with; but that, on the other hand, I would not have felt able to take along, e.g., full power of attorney. I was sure this would have seemed unfair, after we had corresponded so little only, and after a visit all too short, perhaps. Now that we mutually have gained experience I only want to confirm that at any time you see fit to do so I shall accept any of your or your family’s instructions on matters you might yet entrust me with.

Now with regard to my work as your agent, after my explanations to Jan all I wish to say, really, is that I feel it necessary to be able going on in the way I did with Umschau, in other countries, too. I am expecting new and better inquiries. As up till now, I shall keep you fully informed about negotiations, and my views. I again would expect your advice, including reasoned arguments I can pass on and act upon. And within the range of common sense, again, I shall consider no news as good news, and problems I have resolved being not problems any more. A contract mirroring the German one I would sign on your behalf.

Let me here repeat my suggestion that you regulate your foreign royalties through a foundation in Switzerland, being supervised by your trusted friends, and providing the means to further your work. I just thought that “Velikovsky Institute” may be a good name for it, but this is just my own opinion. It will allow adjusting the royalties coming to you or going to the persons you have endowed according to individual conditions most suited to private circumstances, quite removed from the conditions arranged with the publishers. Let me propose such an organization, please.

Here are some questions that Jan may deal with, though about Welten I would say again how profoundly sorry I am that we do not have a new or additional foreword from you, and that no advice has enabled me to improve the appendix. The first printing will be 20’000, and the sales going well from what I hear, I sincerely hope we may introduce at least a short note by you in a second printing (due, I expect, within a year from now!).

- Please advise me on the number of copies of Welten you require.

- Do let me have an early copy of Ramses; may I instruct Sidgwick to send me ten additional copies when they become available?

- I’m certain that Prof. Hornung could not resist reading your new book: will you send him one, or should I do so?

- I am enclosing the list of contributors to Lexikon der Aegyptologie: please mark the names you may wish to send a copy of Ramses to, and either I shall look up or find out their full addresses and send them to you, or send them the British edition directly from here.

- I have not yet received Doubled y’s new edition of Earth, of which you instructed them to send me ten copies.

The correspondence around Kohlhammer Verlag I sent to Jan by now has all appeared in Buchreport, adding thus impact to the interest for your work within the trade—and, I’m sure, to any story that Der Spiegel may prepare.

With my best wishes and friendly regards, yours

Marx



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