A country doctor (book of stories)

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Ein Landarzt is a volume of short stories by Franz Kafka published by Kurt Wolff Verlag in 1920 . It contains fourteen prose pieces from the years 1914 to 1917, including the eponymous story Ein Landarzt . Individual texts had already been published for the first time in magazines and almanacs. The dedication “My Father” precedes the stories.

Contained prose texts

Emergence

A country doctor is the second volume of stories by Franz Kafka for viewing from 1912. The stories contained in it before the law and a dream originated in 1914 in connection with the - later abandoned - Work on the novel The Process , the other pieces predominantly in 1917. Kafka's First Oktavheft, to be dated at the end of February 1917, contains a list of titles that were later included in the Landarzt-Band. A second list in the sixth octave book (around April 1917) names eleven of the texts actually contained later, including Der Kübelreiter .

On the basis of a letter from Kurt Wolff, who had learned from Max Brod that Kafka had worked “all sorts of new things”, Kafka sent him 13 prose texts a few days later, on July 7, 1917, and two more that had been written at the end of July. An exchange of letters followed. In a letter dated August 20, Kafka indicated the selection and order of the pieces he intended - and later implemented in this way. In the third place it still contained the bucket rider, which Kafka had later removed again. He wrote to Wolff: "The title of the new book, I suggest: A Country Doctor 'with the subtitle, Small stories'." Last corrections to the texts sent Kafka the publisher on January 27, 1918. The Bucket Rider appeared in December 1921 in the Prague press .

Due to the war, the publication of the book was delayed by almost two years until the end of 1919 (year given in the book: 1920). The stories A Country Doctor and An Imperial Embassy appeared individually in other publications in 1918 and 1919 respectively. As early as 1917, three other pieces had appeared in the two-month publication Marsyas . According to an estimate by Ludwig Dietz, the total edition was at most 2000 copies.

reception

The book received only one review after it was published.

Kafka himself judged Max Brod in November 1922: "Of everything I have written, only the books are valid: Judgment , Stoker , Metamorphosis , Penal Colony , Country Doctor and the story: Hunger artist ."

In 2003 an international literary conference took place in Verona , which dealt exclusively with the volume A Country Doctor .

expenditure

Publisher's cover of the first edition
  • Franz Kafka: A country doctor. Little stories. Kurt Wolff, Munich / Leipzig 1920, OCLC 718752832 .
  • Franz Kafka: A country doctor. Little stories. With pen drawings by Alfred Kubin . (= Insel-Bücherei . 1243). Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig, 2003, ISBN 3-458-19243-3 .
  • Reprint of the first edition: Franz Kafka: Ein Landarzt. Little stories. Stroemfeld Verlag, Basel / Frankfurt am Main 2006 ISBN 3-87877-941-0 .
  • Franz Kafka: A country doctor. Little stories. Designed and illustrated by Kat Menschik based on the text of the first edition . Verlag Galiani Berlin, Cologne 2016. ISBN 978-3-86971-132-4

literature

  • Juliane Blank: A country doctor. Little stories. In: Manfred Engel , Bernd Auerochs (Hrsg.): Kafka manual. Life - work - effect. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02167-0 , pp. 218-240, esp. 227-231.
  • Robert Kauf: Responsibility. The Theme of Kafka's Country Doctor Cycle. In: Modern Language Quarterly 33, 1972, pp. 420-432.
  • Detlef Kremer: A country doctor. In: Michael Müller (Ed.): Interpretations. Franz Kafka. Novels and short stories. Reclam, Stuttgart 1994, pp. 197-214.
  • Elmar Locher, Isolde Schiffermüller (ed.): Franz Kafka "A country doctor". Interpretations. Studies Verlag, Innsbruck 2004, ISBN 3-900949-44-1 .
  • Marcel Krings: Franz Kafka: The 'Country Doctor' cycle. Freedom - Scripture - Judaism. Heidelberg, Winter 2017, ISBN 978-3-8253-6822-7 .

Web links

Wikisource: Ein Landarzt (anthology)  - sources and full texts
Commons : Kafka Ein Landarzt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Paul Raabe: Afterword and to the texts. In: Franz Kafka: Complete stories. Fischer Verlag, 1970, ISBN 3-436-01062-6 , p. 399.
  2. ↑ Klaus Wagenbach: Franz Kafka - Pictures from his life. 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3625-1 , p. 15 f.
  3. ↑ Paul Raabe: Epilogue and to the texts. In: Franz Kafka: Complete stories. Fischer Verlag, 1970, ISBN 3-436-01062-6 , p. 400.
  4. ^ Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son. A biography. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 , p. 493 ff, p. 29.
  5. ^ Franz Kafka: Letters and Diaries , on univie.ac.at, accessed on April 7, 2015.
  6. ↑ a b "Kafka reads proofreading" on franzkafka.de, accessed on April 8, 2015 - further details on the creation process of the country doctor volume.
  7. ^ Letter to Max Brod dated November 29, 1922: Franz Kafka: Briefe und Tagebücher , on univie.ac.at, accessed on April 7, 2015.
  8. ^ Franz Kafka - A country doctor conference in Verona 19. – 21. November 2003 ( conference program ) on textkritik.de
  9. ↑ 'Ein Landarzt' is dissected on literaturkritik.de; literary conference.