A culturally-influential and celebrated author, Kafka is generally considered to be one of the most accomplished writers of the twentieth century. The term 'Kafkaesque' takes its place in the English vernacular, demonstrating his huge impact on modern thought. In this covetable and must-have boxed set are collected together three of his major works, including the maginificent Metamorphosis and Other Stories.

'The condemned man looked so doggishly submissive, it really seemed as if one might allow him to roam the slopes freely, and only needed to whistle when it was time for the execution, and he would come.'Kafka transformed the possibilities of the short story, his unique imagination giving his dark tales a sense of dream-like logic and unreality, in which their horrors are humorous and unease pervades. In these two stories, a traveller is shown the workings of an elaborate machine with a bloody purpose, and a son awakens unimagined resentments in his father.

The book guides readers through their first encounters with Kafka and introduces the problems involved in reading his texts, the nature of his texts from the key novels and novellas to letters and professional writings, his life as a writer and different approaches to reading Kafka."Continuum's Guides for the Perplexed" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging - or indeed downright bewildering.

From the expressionism of his early prose pieces to his very last work, JOSEPHINE, these stories cover the full range of Kafka's writing career, culminating in THE METAMORPHOSIS, which Elias Canetti described as "one of the few great and perfect works of poetic imagination written during this century."Kafka's stories, argues Borges in his foreword, are superior even to his novels, which is why this collection "gives us the full dimesion of this unique writer.'