The Condition of the Working Class in England

The Condition of the Working Class in England

Summary

Written when Engels was only twenty-four, and inspired in particular by his time living amongst the poor in Manchester, this forceful polemic explores the staggering human cost of the Industrial Revolution in Victorian England. Engels paints an unforgettable picture of daily life in the new industrial towns, and for miners and agricultural workers--depicting overcrowded housing, abject poverty, child labour, sexual exploitation, dirt and drunkenness--in a savage indictment of the greed of the bourgeoisie. His fascinating later preface, written for the first English edition of 1892 and included here, brought the story up to date in the light of forty years' further refelection. A masterpiece of committed reporting and an impassioned call to arms, this is one of the great pioneering works of social history.

About the author

Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels (1820-95) was the son of a Manchester factory owner. He wrote several groundbreaking essays on contemporary social and political conditions in Britain, including The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), in which he criticised the working conditions and treatment of the urban poor. After Karl Marx' death, Engels completed and published the last two volumes of Das Kapital (1884, 1894) from his friend's surviving papers.
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