Friedrich Engels took his observational powers to Manchester in December 1842, having just turned twenty-two the month before. In November, en route from Barmen to London, Engels stopped at the newspaper offices of the Rheinische Zeitung, meeting with the newly installed editor, Herr Karl Marx.

Marx had fallen into the editorship somewhat by default, and certainly not by experience. At that point Engels had contributed around twice as many articles to the paper as Marx, and Marx had placed only a couple of articles elsewhere at all.

Many years later Engels recalled this meeting between the two of them, saying it was notably cool on Marx’s side, given that Marx disapproved of the overly philosophical Berlin set of Young Hegelians. But in his recollections Engels says nothing about the other editors, or indeed how he himself felt about Marx at the time. It must have been clear, though, that Engels was by far the more accomplished writer and indeed publicist for “free thinking” and liberalizing political progress.