This opulently illustrated book was the first to bring together accounts of all Kafka’s trips to Switzerland and Italy, on which his main aim was to observe everyday lives so different to his own, but which also had literary implications, particularly for the novel America (The Missing One) and the complex of stories about The Hunter Gracchus. By using previously unknown publications by Max Brod, who twice travelled south with Kafka, and including contemporary sources, especially travel literature and timetables, the author has been able to reconstruct their itineraries in minute detail, identifying and locating the monuments, events and places that the friends’ sparse travel notes mentioned without giving names or descriptions. There are 473 historical illustrations, some in colour and large-scale reproduction, many of were previously entirely unknown. The result of years of research, they go hand in hand with the chronological reconstruction of Kafka’s holiday experiences, bringing the account to life for the reader.