The Condition of the Working Class in England  is an 1845 book by the German philosopher Friedrich Engels, a study of the industrial working class in Victorian England. Engels' first book, it was originally written in German; an English translation was published in 1887. It was written during Engels' 184244 stay in Manchester, the city at the heart of the Industrial Revolution, and compiled from Engels' own observations and detailed contemporary reports. After their second meeting in 1844, Karl Marx read and was profoundly impressed by the book.