**More than two decades of letters from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century—the author of *The Metamorphosis* and *The Trial* —to the people in his life, from his years as a student in Prague in the early 1900s to his final months in the sanatorium near Vienna where he died in 1924. ** Sometimes surprisingly humorous, sometimes wrenchingly sad, these letters, collected after Kafka’s death by his friend and literary executor Max Brod, include charming notes to school friends; fascinating accounts to Brod about his work in its various stages of publication; correspondence with his publisher, Kurt Wolff, about manuscripts in progress, suggested book titles, type design, and late royalty statements; revealing exchanges with other young writers of the day, including Martin Buber and Felix Weltsch, on life, literature, and girls; and heartbreaking reports to his parents, sisters, and friends on the declining state of his health in the last months of his life.