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The artist's portfolio suite of 120 copies only, this copy signed by Coester on the half-title in pencil, in a deluxe folder, and out of series; together with the first illustrated edition, number 30B of 600 copies, also illustrated by Coester and published later the same year. Featuring starkly different artistic styles, these two rare publications form the first illustrations of Kafka's "ungeheuren Ungeziefer" and serve as essential companions. Published in the Czech language of Kafka's native Bohemia, the book is also the first translation of The Metamorphosis into any language. The German artist Otto Coester (1902-1990) was a member of a close circle of Kafka's admirers and he may have known Kafka personally. Some scholars have therefore posited that he "had some inside knowledge of Kafka's vision" and the scholar Richard Lawson regarded Coester's illustrations of the insect as the most authentic (Gallagher, p. 134). Whereas the portfolio volume uses surrealist imagery that was apparently unpublishable in book form, the book publication uses an entirely different set of illustrations in a more rustic style. Coester's curious creature, however, retains its basic anatomy in both works and is depicted crawling upon a myriad of hands. During his lifetime, Kafka was anxious to never see the insect depicted. He wrote to his publisher upon learning that his Die Verwandlung (1915) was to have an illustrated dust jacket, "the insect itself must not be illustrated by a drawing. It cannot be shown at all, not even from a distance" (25 October 1915). This set is accompanied by an additional loose print of the insect, reproducing the illustrated half-title of the portfolio and issued with the Czech magazine Nejmen í Revue (May 1930). The magazine, included here, also contains a brochure advertising Coester's book edition. This out-of-series copy of the portfolio is bound in card of superior quality and has the stamp in gilt to the left of the front cover, as opposed to being stamped centrally in black. It was published as the 97th volume in the Dobrého Díla ("Good Work") series in April 1929. The book edition was published as the 99th volume in Dobrého Díla in July 1929 in three issues: 50 "A" copies on Holland, 150 "B" copies on buff paper (as here), and 400 "C" copies on white paper. David Gallagher, Metamorphosis: Transformations of the Body and the Influence of Ovid's Metamorphoses on Germanic Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, 2009. Together, 2 items. Portfolio, quarto, pp. 12, leaves loose as issued, illustrated half-title, 6 loose plates (with 5 tissue guards) being heliogravure reproductions of Coester's pen-and-ink drawings. Book, duodecimo, 7 illustrations in the text, grotesque initials incorporating the insect printed in red. Title pages of both printed in red and black. Text in Czech. Portfolio in original brown folder with inner plain paper folder, motif printed in gilt on front cover. Book in original white wrappers, spine and front cover lettered in dark red. All housed in a custom solander box with labels reproducing the illustrations. Foxing to inner folder of portfolio, contents unaffected. Book wrappers a little soiled, front inner hinge split. Together, a near-fine set.
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