KAFKA, Franz.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Promena. First edition in Czech, the first illustrated edition, and the first translation of Metamorphosis into any language. This is an out of series copy on white paper, from a total edition of 600 copies. This was published in three issues: 50 "A" copies on Holland, 150 "B" copies on buff paper, and 400 "C" copies on white paper (as here).The German artist Otto Coester (1902-1990) was a member of a close circle of Kafka's admirers, and 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). 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).A separate portfolio edition was published the same year in an edition of 120 copies, with different illustrations. The book edition was published as the 99th volume in Dobrého Díla in July 1929.

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