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 dimension of this unique writer'. J.A. Underwood's acclaimed translation gives the reader all the chilling atmosphere of Kafka's darkly comic universe, as reflected in the commanding precision of his language.