The Castle / A Novel (EX LIBRIS SYLVIA BEACH)

Kafka, Franz / translated from the German by Willa and Edwin Muir

Published by Martin Secker, London, 1930

About this Item

A 12mo of 7-1/2 inches in blue cloth; NO dust jacket. Ex-Libris bookplate to front pastedown of Shakespeare and Company / Sylvia Beach / Paris, below which is stamped in red "Annule," First English edition of any Kafka novel (following the German edition of 1926, Munich.) Gilt titles still clear to front board and spine. Eight-page translator's Introductory Note begins "Franz Kafka's name, so far as I can discover, is almost unknown to English readers," and concludes with the publisher's note that "A translation of Kafka's novel 'The Trial' is in preparation and will be published shortly." 440 pp., followed by a 9-page "Additional Note" by Kafka's patron, Max Brod (1884-1968), the German-speaking Czech (later Israeli) author, composer, and journalist, who (though prolific in his own right) is now most famous as Kafka's friend and biographer. It was as Kafka's literary executor that Brod made his boldest decision, refusing to follow the writer's instructions to burn his life's work. He published them instead. Without Brod, Kafka would be unknown. The "Additional Note" here includes some brief deleted passages and explains why this posthumous novel ends where it does, as well as detailing what the author had told Brod about how the final chapter would have ended, had Kafka lived to complete it. (With this volume and some Garet Garretts, we begin to offer a few books from our private collection, even as we purge some lower-value titles.).

Seller Inventory # 012798

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Castle / A Novel (EX LIBRIS SYLVIA BEACH)
• Publisher: Martin Secker, London
• Publication Date: 1930
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • Psychology
  • Conspiracies