“I Always Wanted You to Admire My Fasting;” or, Looking at Kafka

New York: Push Pin Studio, 1974. First separate edition of Philip Roth’s experimental short story, in which Franz Kafka does not die young of tuberculosis, but instead escapes to Newark, New Jersey to teach Hebrew to schoolboys during the Second World War: “we vent on him our resentment at having to learn an ancient calligraphy at the very hour we should be out screaming our heads off on the ballfield.” Inspired by Roth’s experience teaching Kafka’s fiction, the story is dedicated to his students at the University of Pennsylvania, and was first published in American Review in 1973. This separate publication, issued as Push Pin Graphic 59 by Milton Glaser’s Push Pin Studio, represents the first appearance of Glaser’s illustrations, which draw on historical photographs of Kafka, his sister Ottla, and his lover Dora Diamant. A very good example of a striking production, with no record at auction and no holdings in OCLC. Side-stapled volume, measuring 12 x 9 inches: [16, wrappers included in pagination]. Four full-page illustrations printed in brown. Light soiling to wrappers, staples rusted.