Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka, Leslie Sherman (illustrator), A. L. Lloyd (translator) 1946 - The Vanguard Press, New York - First American Edition, and First to be illustrated by Leslie Sherman First American edition in fine and thus scarce first issue dust jacket (all brown and with price of $3.95 to front flap, and not to be confused with the second issue which had white flaps, white rear panel, and a price of ‘$2.75’).

Kafka's masterpiece of unease and black humour,
Metamorphosis, the story of an ordinary man transformed into an insect. ‘Encompassing themes of spiritual isolation, rejection of social systems, disillusionment and despair in the face of an ungovernable future’.

Originally published under the title of
Die Verwandlung in Leipzig in 1915, Metamorphosis was first translated into English by A. L. Lloyd in 1937, and to this, the first American edition, were added illustrations by noted Beat Generation artist Leslie Sherman, and a preface by Paul Goodman (1911-72).
  Selected as one of the ‘Top Ten Essential Penguin Classics’:- Metamorphosis gives full expression to the breadth of Kafka's literary vision and the extraordinary depth of his imagination.

Why It's a Classic: The transformation of a human being into an insect is a popular 20th century conceit (see: science fiction). Kafka created darkly humorous worlds where his characters become ensnared within a disorienting nexus of inhospitable systems. Encompassing themes of spiritual isolation, rejection of social systems, disillusionment and despair in the face of an ungovernable future, Kafka's work reads like a testament of the demoralized, modern man. His work also gave us the word Kafkaesque, which means having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality.

What It Influenced: Kafka influenced practically every Western writer who succeeded him. He's a precursor to the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Salman Rushdie. His writing also directly influenced Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Jose Saramago's Blindness, and Japanese writer Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

References: Penguin.

Thin octavo (book size 23x16cm), pp. 98. In publisher’s black cloth brown lettering to spine and upper board, small brown illustration to upper board matching the title page, brown coated endpapers illustrated in black, top edge tinted brown others trimmed. Dust jacket priced ‘$3.95’ to lower corner of front flap.
  Condition: Fine, small abrasion to page 5 possibly from printing, in fine dust jacket but for a small amount of fading to the spine and wear to corners and spine ends,   Ref: 110879   Price: HK$ 9,400