This book examines the life and works of Friedrich Engels during the decade before he entered a political partnership with Karl Marx. It takes a thematic approach in three substantial chapters: Imagination, Observation, and Vocation. Throughout the reader sees the world from Engels's perspective, not knowing how his story will turn out. This approach reveals the multifaceted and ambitious character of young Friedrich's achievements from age sixteen till just turning twenty-five. At the time that he accepted Marx's invitation to co-author a short political satire, Engels was far better known and very much more accomplished. He had published many more articles on far more subjects, and in both German and English, than Marx had managed. Moreover, he had written a critique of political economy from a perspective unique in the German context, and published his own pioneering and substantial study of working class conditions in an industrializing economy.