The Great Wall of China (short story collection) explained

The Great Wall of China
Title Orig:	Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer
Orig Lang Code:	de
Author:	Franz Kafka
Translator:	Willa and Edwin Muir
Language:	German
Genre:	Short stories
Pub Date:	1931
English Pub Date:	London, New York, Schocken Books
Media Type:	Print (hardback)
Pages:	xvi+285
Native Wikisource:	Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (Sammelband)

The Great Wall of China (German: '''Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer''') is the first posthumous collection of short stories by Franz Kafka published in Germany in 1931. It was edited by Max Brod and Hans Joachim Schoeps and collected previously unpublished short stories, incomplete stories, fragments and aphorisms written by Kafka between 1917 and 1924. The first English translation by Willa and Edwin Muir was published by Martin Secker in 1933. The same translation was published in 1946 by Schocken Books.

Contents

• Introductory note by Edwin Muir
• Longer Stories
  • Investigations of a Dog
  • The Burrow
  • The Great Wall of China
  • The Giant Mole
• Short Stories and Fables
  • The Hunter Gracchus
    • • The Married Couple My Neighbor
      • A Common Confusion The Bridge
        • • The Bucket Rider A Crossbreed The Knock at the Manor Gate
      • The City Coat of Arms The Silence of the Sirens
        • • • • Prometheus The Truth about Sancho Panza The Problem of Our Laws On Parables
    • A Little Fable Aphorisms
  • "He"
  • Reflections on Sin, Pain, Hope, and the True Way

Publication history (in English)

• 1933 London: Martin Secker, xvi+285 pp., hardcover; first UK edition, subtitled and Other Pieces
• 1946 London: Secker and Warburg, 159 pp., hardcover; Revised and reset edition
• 1946 New York: Schocken Books, xix+315 pp., hardcover; first US edition, subtitled Stories and Reflections