The Library of Stephen J. Farber

8vo. 5pp. publisher's ads at end. Original pictorial wrappers printed in red and black with an illustration by Ottomar Starke, printed flaps, uncut (light spotting to upper cover, some toning and rubbing to extremities, small split to front joint near head of spine); morocco-backed folding case.

FIRST EDITION, THE PREFERRED WRAPPERS ISSUE, of Kafka's eerie fantasy of psychological transformation and social alienation. "This 'exceptionally repulsive story' is the most sustained work of fiction published during Kafka's lifetime and the one with which his name is most profoundly associated in the common conscious. In his critical hierarchy of the great prose works of the Twentieth Century, Vladimir Nabokov rates Die Verwandlung second behind only James Joyce's Ulysses, a work that is twenty or more times its length" (The Breon Mitchell Collection of the Works of Franz Kafka, p.7).

Following its first appearance in the journal "Die Weissen Blätter," Kafka was eager to have the novel published in book form by Kurt Wolff. After he learned that Ottomar Starke was illustrating the cover, he wrote to the publishing house in a letter dated 25 October 1915: "The insect itself must not be illustrated by a drawing. It cannot be shown at all, not even from a distance." "Der Jüngste Tag" 22/23; Dietz 26; Wilpert/Gühring 4.