The Life and Work of Friedrich Engels/Chapter 21
Last Years
In 1888 Engels published his book on Feuerbach, in which, with his customary clear logic, he annihilates the later Hegelian philosophy of which Feuerbach was a leading exponent. He then goes on to explain in clear concise language the materialistic conception of History as worked out by Marx and himself. As we have already dealt with this subject, we shall not stop here to examine this book any further.
Almost to a few weeks before his death, Engels kept his freshness for work. Only a few months before his death he was still planning new labours for himself or the re-editing of some of Marx's works, and the writing of introductions to them. The last work he completed was the introduction to Marx's The Class Struggle in France from 1848–1850. This work he wrote only five months before his death, but it is characterised by all the vigour, logic and merciless criticism of which he was always such a master. In it Engels gives a short but comprehensive continuation of European history from 1850 to 1895.
Like Marx, Engels was not much of a public speaker. His last public appearances were in 1893, at the Congress of Zürich. Also at Vienna and Berlin.
In March, 1895, he developed cancer of the throat, and on August 6 of the same year he died of this disease. He had requested that he should be cremated and his ashes thrown into the sea. This last sad service was performed by some of his best friends, amongst them Eleanor Marx, who travelled to his favourite seaside resort, Eastbourne, August 27, hired a boat and threw his ashes into the sea.