Description

 

Kafka, Franz (1883 – 1924)

‘I am… twining my legs to wring the fatigue out of them’

Autograph postcard signed (‘Franz’) to Max Brod, [postmarked Halberstadt], 7th July 1912. In German. 89 x 138mm, in pencil. Kafka writes a playful note to his dear friend Brod from his holiday. He sends, ‘this first morning greeting to your office. Don’t take it too hard. I’m not exactly blissful, in spite of this incredibly old city. I am sitting on a balcony above a fish market and twining my legs to wring the fatigue out of them’.

In very fine condition, and extremely rare. It was Brod who was famously responsible for giving Kafka’s writing to the world after his death.

After a summer sojourn in Weimar, accompanied by Max Brod – during which, he wrote to his parents, ‘[we] are living and sightseeing happily’ (30th June 1912) – Kafka travelled alone to the historic city of Halberstadt for a little more sightseeing, while Brod returned to Prague. He sent another postcard on 7th July to Brod, after visiting the house of the Enlightenment poet Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim. From Halberstadt, Kafka proceeded to a sanatorium in Jungborn, where he spent most of July.