We have a marvelous, almost legendary image of the circumstances in which the composition of this great poem began. Rainer Maria Rilke was staying at Duino Castle, on a rocky headland of the Adriatic Sea near Trieste. One morning he walked out onto the battlements and climbed down to where the cliffs dropped sharply to the sea. From out of the fierce wind, Rilke seemed to hear a voice:
(If I cried out, who would hear me up there, among the angelic orders?). He wrote these words, the opening of the first Duino Elegy, in his notebook, then went inside to continue what was to be his major opus—completely only after another ten, tormented years of effort—and one of the literary masterpieces of the century.
speaks in a voice that is both intimate and majestic on the mysteries of human life and our attempt, in the words of the translator David Young, “to use our self-consciousness to some advantage: to transcend, through art and the imagination, our self-deception and our fear.”

《卡夫卡全集（插图本 套装全9卷）》共9卷，由著名学者、德语翻译家叶廷芳先生主编。全书创作部分主要依据卡夫卡生前好友马克斯·勃罗德的版本编纂的，而略作调整；书信则依据近年发现的资料作了较大补充。第一卷为短篇小说，根据保尔·拉贝《卡夫卡短篇小说集》和马克斯·勃罗德《乡村婚事》重编。第二卷收录两部长篇小说《失踪者》和《诉讼》。第三卷收录长篇小说《城堡》。第四卷收录随笔、残篇以及谈话录，随笔包括卡夫卡留下的八个八开本笔记本，具有珍贵的资料价值。第五卷为卡夫卡日记，末附作者的几个旅游日记。第六、第七两卷为书信集，第六卷收录的是除情书和家书以外所有1900－1921年之间致友人的书信；第七卷收录1922－1924年之间致友人的书信，其余为家书，末附卡夫卡写于1919年而最终并为寄出的著名长信《致父亲》。第八卷收录情书。卡夫卡所写情书数量之多，在现代大作家中实属罕见，约占卡夫卡全部文字的一半左右，而先后给两个热恋对象写的情书又占了其中一半以上。本卷主要为卡夫卡致与之两次订婚、又两次退婚的菲莉斯·鲍威尔的情书。第九卷一部分仍为卡夫卡致菲莉斯·鲍威尔的情书，另一部分为致有夫之妇密伦娜的情书。
《卡夫卡全集（插图本 套装全9卷）》译者有张荣昌、章国锋、赵蓉恒、卢永华、黎奇等，均为德语翻译界卓有建树的翻译家。
上世纪90年代，《卡夫卡全集（插图本 套装全9卷）》曾由河北教育出版社出版。此次再版，我们依照现行规范改换了个别文字，并从国外有关书籍中遴选具有珍贵历史价值的图片资料392幅，以作较大补充，其他未作更动。