Klaus Wagenbach Franz Kafka - Biographie seiner Jugend (Franz Kafka - The Early Years) Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, April 2006, 327 pp ISBN-10: 3-8031-3620-2/ISBN-13: 978-3-8031-3620-6 This revised edition of a landmark biography covers the period from Kafka's birth in 1883, through his schooling and university education, up to his first years of employment, breaking off in 1912, twelve years before his death. The main text remains unaltered, even down to the original typeface and pagination. The revisions come in the form of a new foreword, changes to the supporting documentation, and extensive additions to the original footnotes. The general thrust of Wagenbach's argument is that Kafka's early years are crucial to an understanding of his later life and work. The biography focuses in particular on Kafka's family background and the since well-documented tension between the robust father and the delicate, sensitive son. It also considers the narrow geographical focus of Kafka's early years, which unfolded within the framework of a few streets in Prague's city centre, and looks at the position of the Jewish minority in that city, who were overwhelmingly German-speaking, with an interesting discussion of the peculiarities of Prague German. Wagenbach was the first German-speaking researcher to access Kafka's papers and other primary sources in Czechoslovakia and Israel: his experiences in those countries are fascinatingly chronicled in the new foreword. From the outset an essential work, its importance for scholars and the general reader remains unchallenged.