First printing in the English language, in the exceptionally rare dust jacket
Publisher and Year: London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1937
Edition: First British edition, first printing. Translated by Edwin and Willa Muir, this was the novel's first introduction to the English-speaking world. This first British edition preceded the American edition (New York: Knopf, 1937) by a little more than three months (June versus October, respectively). Gollancz managed to sell only about a thousand copies of The Trial and therefore decided never to produce another of Kafka's works. The American publisher evidently fared much better, with those first printing copies appearing much more frequently on the market today, and with subsequent reprints by the same publishing house all the way through the 1950s. The British jacket is exceptionally scarce; we can trace just five appearances of copies in jacket at auction.
Condition and Description: Octavo, blue cloth lettered in black, 285 pp. A sharp copy of the book, with clean cloth and tight binding. Mild fading to the spine and edges. Some spotting to the edges of the text block. No writing or underlining. Clean pages, with only very occasional and minor imperfections, including some modest foxing to the preliminary leaves (representative examples shown). The original dust jacket is chipped, toned, stained, and has closed tears (repaired on the verso with archival tape, as shown in the final four pictures).
“…without having done anything wrong, he was arrested one fine morning.”
References:
The Yorkshire Post (23 June 1937). (The British edition of The Trial listed with a publication date of 28 June)
The New York Times (30 Sep 1937). (The American edition of The Trial listed with a publication date of 18 October)
Inventory ID: 262 - 867 - 633
First printing in the English language, in the exceptionally rare dust jacket
Publisher and Year: London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1937
Edition: First British edition, first printing. Translated by Edwin and Willa Muir, this was the novel's first introduction to the English-speaking world. This first British edition preceded the American edition (New York: Knopf, 1937) by a little more than three months (June versus October, respectively). Gollancz managed to sell only about a thousand copies of The Trial and therefore decided never to produce another of Kafka's works. The American publisher evidently fared much better, with those first printing copies appearing much more frequently on the market today, and with subsequent reprints by the same publishing house all the way through the 1950s. The British jacket is exceptionally scarce; we can trace just five appearances of copies in jacket at auction.
Condition and Description: Octavo, blue cloth lettered in black, 285 pp. A sharp copy of the book, with clean cloth and tight binding. Mild fading to the spine and edges. Some spotting to the edges of the text block. No writing or underlining. Clean pages, with only very occasional and minor imperfections, including some modest foxing to the preliminary leaves (representative examples shown). The original dust jacket is chipped, toned, stained, and has closed tears (repaired on the verso with archival tape, as shown in the final four pictures).
“…without having done anything wrong, he was arrested one fine morning.”
References:
The Yorkshire Post (23 June 1937). (The British edition of The Trial listed with a publication date of 28 June)
The New York Times (30 Sep 1937). (The American edition of The Trial listed with a publication date of 18 October)
Inventory ID: 262 - 867 - 633
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