Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis between 17 November and 6 December 1912.
Its first publication came in 1915, in the expressionist journal Die weißen Blätter. Later that same year, it appeared in book form as volumes 22/23 of the series Der jüngste Tag (The Youngest Day), published by Kurt Wolff.
The edition carried a cover illustration by Ottomar Starke. Kafka, however, insisted to his publisher that under no circumstance should “the insect itself” be depicted. In a letter to Kurt Wolff (25 October 1915), he stressed that the creature “cannot be drawn—indeed, it must not even be shown from a distance.”
