Manuscripts

The various bundles of handwritten pages that make up Kafka's literary legacy are remarkable for two antithetical qualities: a cryptic, idiosyncratic approach in combination with the almost childlike outward appearance of the surviving pages. The surviving manuscripts consist of notebooks in several formats, along with loose-leaf bundles and material in envelopes. These pages are covered in handwriting that varies from the neat and legible 'fair copy' to casual and messy jottings. Deletions and emendations are carefully executed, but the loose sides are rarely numbered. The author's handwriting changes noticeably over the years, and is sometimes replaced by that of another, most probably his sister Ottla, to whom Kafka sometimes dictated letters and messages. To describe the task of transcribing the manuscripts as daunting would be an understatement. It seems little short of miraculous that on these slender, unstable foundations rests a canonical oeuvre of unrivalled power and authority.

Scholars accustomed to the labyrinthine meanderings of Kafka’s prose have noted that a stark simplicity shines through the complexities of what has been written on the pages. The author’s preferred medium is the school exercise book in its most basic form: the small octavo booklets that were used by countless high-school fledglings as Vokabelhefte, handy pads and jotters for vocabulary and note-taking, and the larger quarto size, reserved for the young scholars’ exercises and homework. Sometimes, Kafka would avail himself of official headed stationery (Kanzleipapier).