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` 1842–44 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.