New read-along – The Trial

by Franz Kafka

Dear classics readers,

Join me in September to read Franz Kafka’s The Trial, which was first published 100 years ago this year.

---

Before we get on to The Trial, though, I’d also love to share some exciting news. I have been publishing Read the Classics for a year now and it’s been wonderful – I love being part of this vibrant, kind, creative community on Substack – and it’s a true pleasure reading and discussing these classics with you, my subscribers. So I am delighted to announce that Read the Classics will soon be evolving.

From next month, Read the Classics will be partnering with Hatchards, the oldest bookshop in the UK, who will offer an annual physical book subscription to the books we read here on Substack as well as the opportunity each month to meet in person to discuss the books after we read them.

More details to follow soon, but I wanted to let you know that this will involve a few changes to the format of Read the Classics:

• From September, I will be sending just one email each week, on Fridays, featuring recommendations, round-ups and read-alongs;

• We will be reading a new classic book each month – and read-along videos and discussions will be available to paid subscribers only;

• Our ongoing read-alongs of Anna Karenina and The Old Curiosity Shop will remain free and I plan to host a new year-long read-along, starting in January 2026 – title to be announced! – which will also be free for all subscribers;

• I have removed the archive paywall, so all of the posts from the last year, and all unpaid content from September onwards, will be freely available for everyone.

I hope these changes will make for a clearer and more enjoyable experience for all. Please do let me know if you have any questions – more to follow in future posts!

---

And now, back to The Trial.

---

What is it?

Kafka’s greatest novel opens with Josef K., a bank cashier, waking on his thirtieth birthday to find himself ‘arrested’ by a mysterious, inaccessible authority. He sets out to exonerate himself but becomes increasingly tangled in dream-like encounters with eccentric characters and nightmarish bureaucracy. ‘It is the fate and perhaps the greatness of [The Trial],’ wrote Albert Camus, ‘that it offers everything and confirms nothing.’

Anthony Perkins as Josef K. in The Trial (1962), dir. Orson Welles

---

Why are we reading it?

The Trial was written in 1914 and 1915 and first published posthumously in 1925, 100 years ago this year. It is a chilling, flickering shadow version of Kafka’s own experience as a German-speaking Jew in Prague during the First World War, but it is also a universal warning: a dark vision of an individual pitted against an implacable system. W. H. Auden called Kafka ‘the Dante of the twentieth century’.

---

Which translation should I read?

There are several English translations of The Trial available and they are all slightly different, because Kafka left The Trial unfinished and unpublished: the text survives as a collection of fragmented episodes and their order is open to interpretation.

I propose we read Idris Parry’s 1994 translation, published by Penguin Classics, which is easily available in the UK and the US.

Penguin Classics | 208 pages

Due to the variations between translations, I would recommend we read the same translation, but if you choose to read another it will be fascinating to hear how it differs!

---

How will we read it?

The Trial is 178 pages long in my edition and Parry has divided the text into ten chapters.

I suggest we read it over three weeks:

• We’ll start reading on Friday 5th September.

• On Friday 12th September we’ll discuss the first four chapters: ‘Arrest – Conversation with Frau Grubach – Then Fräulein Bürstner’, ‘First Examination’, ‘In the Empty Assembly Hall – The Student – The Offices’ and ‘B.’s Friend’;

• On Friday 19th September we’ll discuss chapters five to seven: ‘The Whipper’, ‘The Uncle – Leni’ and ‘Advocate – Manufacturer – Painter’;

• On Friday 26th September we’ll discuss the last three chapters: ‘Merchant Block – The Dismissal of the Advocate’, ‘In the Cathedral’ and ‘End’.

And then, if you’re near London, you’re very welcome to book a ticket for our discussion of The Trial at the Hatchards Classics Book Club on Thursday 2nd October.

We meet downstairs at Hatchards (187 Piccadilly) on the first Thursday of every month at 6.30pm – tickets cost £5 with a free Hatchards Reward Card and include a glass of wine. These book club events are not live-streamed, but afterwards I will be posting a report of our discussion here on Substack.

---

If you buy a copy of The Trial through Bookshop.org (UK) or Bookshop.org (US), Read the Classics will earn a commission from your purchase. Thank you in advance for your support!