The Condition of the Working Class in England

Friedrich Engels was born in Germany in 1820, the son of a textile manufacturer. After his military training in Berlin he became Manchester agent of his father's business, and soon became immersed in the problems of the urban proletariat newly created by the industrial revolution. In 1844 he wrote this famous book and by 1848 he was a firm friend of Marx. Their ideas were incorporated into The Communist Manifesto, although the writing of the Manifesto itself was solely Marx's work. Engels provided Marx with money, and after 1870 spent all his time assisting him in his research and in supplying ideas and leadership to international socialism. After Marx's death Engels continued to work on Das Kapital, and completed it in 1894, a year before his own death. He also wrote The Peasant War in Germany, The Origin of the Family, Socialism, Utopianism and Scientific, and much else.