Frederick Engels (1820-1895), the son of a wealthy German textile manufacturer, moved in 1842 to England to take a position in a factory near Manchester partially owned by his father. Engels met Karl Marx in 1844 and began a lifelong association with him. The two are considered to be the founders of modern communism. The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845; English translation 1847) is one of the classic texts of Marxist thought, standing besides such other of Engels' works as Socialism: Utopian and Scientific and The Dialectic of Nature. It is a vitally important political, social and historical document.