The Condition of the Working Class in England is the best known work of Engels, and still in many ways the best study of the working class in Victorian England. It was the first book written by Engels during his stay in Manchester from 1842 to 1844. Manchester was then at the very heart of the Industrial Revolution, and Engels compiled his study from his own observations and detailed contemporary reports. The fluency of his writing, the personal nature of his insights, and his talent for mordant satire combine to make this account of the lives of the victims of early industrial change into a classic - a historical study that parallels and complements the fictional works of the time by such writers as Gaskell and Dickens. What Cobbett had done for agricultural poverty in his Rural Rides, Engels did - and more - in this work on the plight of industrial workers in England in the 1840s. This edition includes the prefaces to the English and American editions, and a map of Manchester c.1845.