Blue Octavo Notebooks

by Franz Kafka, Max Brod (Editor)

Overview

Originally omitted from Kafka's famous diaries, these notebooks contain some of Kafka's most famous aphorisms

From late 1917 until June 1919, Franz Kafka ceased to keep a diary, for which he had used quarto-size notebooks, instead writing in a series of smaller, octavo-size notebooks. When Kafka's literary executor, Max Brod, published the diaries in 1948, he omitted these notebooks—which include short stories, fragments of stories and other literary writings—because, he wrote, “notations of a diary nature, dates, are found in them only as a rare exception.” The Blue Octavo Notebooks have thus remained little known and yet are among the most characteristic and brilliantly gnomic of Kafka's work. In addition to otherwise unpublished material, the notebooks contain some of Kafka's most famous aphorisms within their original context. This edition of the English translation has been corrected with reference to the German text for certain omissions and discrepancies of sequence. Followers of Kafka will require this book and will find it most rewarding.” –Library Journal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781878972040
Publisher:	Exact Change
Publication date:	09/30/2011
Pages:	120
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 7.96(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

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 Judgement", 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 At the end of his life, Kafka asked his lifelong friend and literary executor Max Brod to burn all his unpublished work.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.

Date of Birth:

July 3, 1883

Date of Death:

June 3, 1924

Place of Birth:

Prague, Austria-Hungary

Place of Death:

Vienna, Austria

Education:

German elementary and secondary schools. Graduated from German Charles-Ferdinand University of Prague.