The Condition of the Working Class in England

This classic Marxist text is an important document of social conditions in a Victorian industrial city. Engels describes the appalling conditions of the working class with detail, accuracy, compassion and anger. He discusses the daily life of the factory hands, the horrible industrial accidents and the pollution of the city. He contrasts their squalid living conditions with the luxury of the bourgeois manufacturers (like himself) and also compares Manchester with other Victorian cities. He also discusses the influx of immigrants from Ireland and from the country to the big cities.