3 Franz Kafka first editions are documented on this shelf, from The Metamorphosis (1915) to Amerika (1927) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Franz Kafka title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.
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- The Metamorphosis — 1915 · Kurt Wolff Verlag, LeipzigGerman true first: Die Verwandlung, Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig, 1915, issued as the double volume 22/23 of the series Der jüngste Tag — the series numbering on the wrapper and title is the primary identifier. The story had already appeared in the periodical Die weissen Blätter in October 1915, so the Wolff volume is the first book appearance, published that December. The cover carries Ottomar Starke's drawing of…. The census claim is correct. The true first is the German Die Verwandlung (Kurt Wolff, Leipzig, 1915, Der jüngste Tag 22/23). The first separate English-language book edition is Parton Press, London, 1937 (A.L. Lloyd), which precedes the first American, The Vanguard Press, New York, 1946 (same Lloyd text) — both English-language editions are collected, the Parton as the first in English and the Vanguard as the…. No book-club issue is documented for the 1915 Wolff, the 1937 Parton, or the 1946 Vanguard. Reprint tells: any Kurt Wolff printing without the Der jüngste Tag 22/23 series designation, or with a later series/printing statement, is a subsequent issue. In English the traps are volume-of-collected-stories appearances and the many post-war Schocken, Vanguard reprint and paperback-series printings, all of which are….
- The Castle — 1926 · Kurt Wolff VerlagFirst printing of the German true first: 'Das Schloss', Kurt Wolff Verlag, Munich, 1926, with Max Brod's afterword. Octavo, [vi] + 504 pp. Publisher's blue cloth with printed paper labels to the spine and front board (labels are characteristically age-toned; spine label lettered in red); a scarcer issue in blue printed wrappers with a typographic cover label designed by Georg Salter is also recorded — both are…. The German 'Das Schloss' (Kurt Wolff Verlag, Munich, 1926) is the true first edition. The census claim that Secker, London, 1930 PRECEDES Knopf, New York, 1930 is NOT confirmed and is corrected here: dealers citing the standard Kafka bibliography (Angel Flores, cited as 'Flores, 15') record the Knopf first English translation as 'published simultaneously with the British edition'. Both 1930 English firsts carry…. No book-club issue of the 1926 Kurt Wolff first is documented; the cloth-with-labels and printed-wrappers states are publisher's issues, not club issues. For the English text the traps are 'first thus': later Secker, Secker & Warburg, Knopf, Modern Library and Schocken printings of the Muir translation, editions incorporating Brod's additional material, and the later re-translations (Harman, Underwood, Bell) are….
- Amerika — 1927 · Kurt Wolff Verlag, MunichGerman true first, published posthumously (Kafka died 1924): Kurt Wolff Verlag, München, 1927, edited with an afterword by Max Brod, who supplied the title 'Amerika' — Kafka's own working title was 'Der Verschollene' (The Man Who Disappeared). Issued in publisher's red cloth with a printed title vignette to the front board and spine, 391 pp., the binding/cover design by Georg Salter and the text printed at…. The original-language German first (Kurt Wolff, Munich, 1927) is the true first. First edition in English is the Willa & Edwin Muir translation issued in London by George Routledge & Sons in 1938 under the variant title 'America'; the first American edition followed from New Directions (Norfolk, CT), published 8 October 1940 as 'Amerika' in the New Classics series (Klaus Mann preface, Brod afterword, Alvin Lustig…. The New Directions 'Amerika' was reprinted (notably in 1946); the 1946 and later New Directions printings are reprints, not the 8 October 1940 first American edition. Do not treat the common 1946 New Directions copies as the US first.
More Literary Fiction (US) & Award Winners shelves: Frederick Forsyth, Frederick Marryat, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Galway Kinnell, Gene Wolfe, Geoff Ryman.
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