Kafka's profound and humorous exploration of alienation and authority is found in the other fictional pieces he published during his lifetime, all collected in this edition. Included are Meditation, a group of Kafka's early studies; "The Judgement", his most powerful statement on the father-son conflict; "The Stoker", the first chapter of the unfinished novel Amerika; "In the Penal Colony", perhaps Kafka's most disturbing piece; A Country Doctor, tales written just before he contracted tuberculosis; the story "The Coal-Scuttle Rider"; and A Fasting-Artist, Kafka's final collection of stories, published just before his death. Together, these works reveal the breadth of Kafka's literary vision and the extraordinary imaginative depth of his thought.