The Castle

Franz Kafka (Author); Mark Harman (Translated, With A Preface by)

ISBN 10: 0805211063 / ISBN 13: 9780805211061

Published by Schocken Books, New York, 1998

About this Item

325 pp. Solidly bound copy with moderate use. Warped book, cover to cover. Stains on spine, top, fore and bottom edges. Slightly creased spine.

Seller Inventory # 8iAa0124

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Castle
• Publisher: Schocken Books, New York
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805211063
• ISBN 13: 9780805211061
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Illustrator: Culver Pictures (Cover Photo); Kathleen Digrado (Cover Design); Maura Fadden Rosenthal (Design)
• Edition: 1st Paperback Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Fiction-Classic Fiction & Novel
  • Fiction-Fictional Novel, Literary Fiction & Novel

About this title

Synopsis

From the author of The Metamorphosis and The Trial—one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century—the haunting tale of K.’s relentless, unavailing struggle with an inscrutable authority in order to gain access to the Castle. Translated and with a preface by Mark Harman.

Arriving in a village to take up the position of land surveyor for the mysterious lord of a castle, the character known as K. finds himself in a bitter and baffling struggle to contact his new employer and go about his duties. 

The Castle's original manuscript was left unfinished by Kafka in 1922 and not published until 1926, two years after his death. Scrupulously following the fluidity and breathlessness of the sparsely punctuated original manuscript, Mark Harman’s new translation reveals levels of comedy, energy, and visual power previously unknown to English language readers.

About the Author

FRANZ KAFKA was born in 1883 in Prague, where he lived most of his life. During his lifetime, he published only a few short stories, including “The Metamorphosis,” “The Judgment,” and “The Stoker.” He died in 1924, before completing any of his full-length novels. At the end of his life, Kafka asked his lifelong friend and literary executor Max Brod to burn all his unpublished work. Brod overrode those wishes.

MARK HARMAN holds a Ph.D. from Yale University and has taught German and Irish literature at Oberlin and Dartmouth. In addition to writing scholarly essays on Kafka and other modern authors, he has edited and co-translated Robert Walser Rediscovered: Stories, Fairy-Tale Plays, and Critical Responses and has translated Soul of the Age: Selected Letters of Hermann Hesse, 1891-1962. He teaches literature at the University of Pennsylvania.