Franz Kafka's final novel tells the haunting tale of a man known only as K. and of his relentless, unavailing struggle with an inscrutable authority in order to gain entrance to the Castle. Although Kafka seemed to consider The Castle a failure, critics, in wrestling with its enigmatic meaning, have recognized it as one of the great novels of our century.

This new edition of Kafka's terrifying and comic masterpiece is the product of an international team of experts who returned to Kafka's original manuscript and notes to create a text that is as close as possible to the way the author left it. The Times Literary Supplement hailed their work, saying that it will "decisively alter our understanding of Kafka and render previous editions obsolete".

Mark Harman's brilliant translation closely follows the fluidity and breathlessness of the sparsely punctuated original manuscript, revealing levels of comedy, energy, and visual power that have not been previously accessible to English-language readers.

W.H. Auden likened Kafka to Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe as the single most important writer of his age. Here, in this new edition, is a Kafka for the 21st century.