(Schocken 03), pp. 9-17, includes 'Conversation with the Supplicant.' The two pieces are not reproduced in the present volume.
Wedding Preparations in the Country
'Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande,' 'fragments of a novel' of which three transcripts are extant, was written in 1907-8. The manuscript turned up in Max Brod's library together with 'Description of a Struggle' (q.v.). Brod edited it as the title story (pp. 7-54) of a volume of posthumously published Kafka material (Gesammelte Werke, Schocken C7), which includes the 'Letter to His Father,' the eight octavo notebooks, and the 'fragments from notebooks.' The piece originally appeared in Die Neue Rundschau, Frankfurt a. M., 1951. English edition of the volume: Dearest Father. Stories and Other Writings (Schocken D7).
The Judgment
'Das Urteil,' written during the night of September 22-23, 1912, was first published in the annual Arkadia, edited by Max Brod (Leipzig: Kurt Wolff Verlag, 1913), dedicated 'to Miss Felice B.,' in later editions 'for F.' English title also 'The Verdict.' Erzahlungen (Schocken B1 and C5), pp. 51-66. Penal Colony (Schocken 03), pp. 49-63.
Diaries, September 23, 1912, following the complete draft of 'The Judgment': 'This story, 'The Judgment,' I wrote at one sitting during the night of the 22nd-23rd, from ten o'clock at night to six o'clock in the morning. I was hardly able to pull my legs from under the desk, they had got so stiff from sitting. The fearful strain and joy, how the story developed before me, as if I were advancing over water. Several times during this night I heaved my own weight on my back. How everything can be said, how for everything, for the strangest fancies, there waits a great fire in which they perish and rise up again. . . Only in this way can writing be done, only with such coherence, with such a complete opening out of the body and the soul.'
Diaries, February n, 1913: 'While I read the proofs of 'The Judgment,'. . . the story came out of me like a real birth, covered with filth and slime, and only I have the hand that can reach to the body itself and the strength of desire to do so.' There follow notes toward an interpretation of the story.
Max Brod, Franz Kafka, p. 141: 'At [Oskar] Baum's he read 'The Verdict' to us and had tears in his eyes. 'The indubitability [Zweifellosigkeit] of the story is confirmed.' Those are strong words of self-conviction [Uberzeugt-sein von sich selbst], rare enough in the case of Franz.'
The Metamorphosis
'Die Verwandlung,' written in the second half of November and the first days of December 1912, was first published in the monthly Die Weissen Blatter, October 1915; reprinted in the series Der jungste Tag, vols. XXII-XXIII (Leipzig: Kurt Wolff Verlag, 1915). Erzahlungen (Schocken B1 and C5), pp. 67-142. Penal Colony (Schocken 03), pp. 67-132.
Diaries, January 19, 1914: 'Great antipathy to 'Metamorphosis.' Unreadable ending. Imperfect almost to its very marrow.' Gustav Janouch suggested that Samsa, the hero of the story, sounds like a cryptogram for Kafka. 'Kafka interrupted me. 'It is not a cryptogram. Samsa is not merely Kafka and nothing else [Samsa ist nicht restlos Kafka]. The Metamorphosis is not a confession, although it is — in a certain sense — an indiscretion'.' (Conversations with Kafka, p. 35).
In the Penal Colony
'In der Strafkolonie,' written October 1914, was first published by Kurt Wolff Verlag as a Drugulin Press edition, Leipzig, 1919. Erzahlungen (Schocken B1 and C5), pp. 179-213. Penal Colony (Schocken D3), pp. 191-227.
Kafka to Janouch on this story: 'Personal proofs of my human weakness are printed. . . because my friends, with Max Brod at their head, have conceived the idea of making literature out of them, and because I have not the strength to destroy this evidence of solitude.' (Conversations with Kafka, p. 32).
The Village Schoolmaster [The Giant Mole]
The unfinished 'Der Dorfschullehrer' or 'Der Riesenmaulwurf' (Kafka used both titles), written in December 1914 and the beginning of 1915, appeared first in Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (Berlin, 1931), pp. 131-53. Great Wall of China (Schocken D1), pp. 98-113.
Diaries, December 19, 1914: 'Yesterday wrote 'The Village Schoolmaster' almost without knowing it, but was afraid to go on writing later than a quarter to two; the fear was well founded, I slept hardly at all, merely suffered through perhaps three short dreams. . . Then went home and calmly wrote for three hours.' 'The one gravely incomplete story in the book [Great Wall of China] (E. Muir, Introductory Note to the first English edition, p. xvii).
Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor
The incomplete 'Blumfeld, ein alterer Junggeselle,' written probably in the beginning of 1915, first appeared in Beschreibung eines Kampfes (Schocken Bv), pp. 142-71.
