Now back in print, more than two decades’ worth of revelatory letters-sometimes surprisingly humorous, sometimes heart-wrenchingly sad-to the men and women with whom Franz Kafka maintained his closest personal relationships.

Collected after his death by his friend and literary executor Max Brod, here is a treasure trove of Kafka’s letters from his years as a student in Prague in the early 1900s to his final months in the sanatorium near Vienna where he died in 1924. They include charming notes to school friends; fascinating accounts to Brod about his work in its various stages of publication; correspondence with his publisher, Kurt Wolff, about manuscripts in progress, suggested book titles, type design, and late royalty statements; revealing exchanges with other young writers of the day, including Martin Buber and Felix Weltsch, on life, literature, and girls; and heartbreaking reports to his parents, sisters, and friends on the declining state of his health in the last months of his life.