and Engels even recalled that they were "great friends," but it is still unclear whether Marx and Stirner ever met. It does not appear that Stirner contributed much to the discussions, but he was a faithful member of the club and an attentive listener. The most-often reproduced portrait of Stirner is a cartoon by Engels, drawn forty years later from memory at biographer Mackay's request. It is highly likely that this and the group sketch of Die Freien at Hippel's are the only firsthand images of Stirner. Stirner worked as a teacher in a school for young girls owned by Madame Gropius when he wrote his major work, The Ego and Its Own, which in part is a polemic against Feuerbach and Bauer, but also against communists such as Wilhelm Weitling and the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. He resigned from his teaching position in anticipation of controversy from this work's publication in October 1844. Stirner married twice. His first wife was Agnes Burtz (1815–1838), the daughter of his landlady, whom he married on 12 December 1837. However, she died from complications with pregnancy in 1838. In 1843, he married Marie Dähnhardt, an intellectual associated with Die Freien. Their ad hoc wedding took place at Stirner's apartment, during which the participants were notably dressed casually, used copper rings as they had forgotten to buy wedding rings, and needed to search the whole neighborhood for a Bible as they did not have their own. Using Marie's inheritance, Stirner opened a dairy shop that handled the distribution of milk from dairy farmers into the city, but was unable to solicit the customers needed to keep the business afloat. It quickly failed and drove a wedge between him and Marie, leading to their separation in 1847. The Ego and Its Own was dedicated "to my sweetheart Marie Dähnhardt." Marie later converted to Catholicism and died in 1902 in London. After The Ego and Its Own, Stirner wrote Stirner's Critics and translated Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and Jean-Baptiste Say's Traite d'Economie Politique into German to little financial gain. He also wrote a compilation of texts titled History of Reaction in 1852. Stirner died in 1856 in Berlin from an infected insect bite. Only Bruno Bauer and Ludwig Buhl represented the Young Hegelians present at his funeral, held at the Friedhof II der Sophiengemeinde Berlin. Philosophy Stirner, whose main philosophical work was The Ego and