The Complete Stories (forword by John Updike)

1902 Vacation in Schelesen and Triesch, with uncle Dr. Siegfried Löwy (the "country doctor"). Met Max Brod; friendship with Felix Weltsch and Oskar Baum.

1903 Working on a novel The Child and the City (lost).

1904-5 "Description of a Struggle." Reads diaries, memoirs, letters: Byron, Grillparzer, Goethe, Eckermann.

1905-6 Summers in Zuckmantel. Love affair with an unnamed woman. Meetings with Oskar Baum, Max Brod, Felix Weltsch.

1906 Works in the law office of Richard Löwy, Prague.

June: Gets degree of doctor juris at German University, Prague.

From October: One year's internship in the law courts.

1907-8 "Wedding Preparations in the Country" (fragments of a novel).

1907 October: Position with "Assicurazioni General!," Italian insurance company. Family moves to Niklas-Strasse.

1908 Position at the semi-governmental Workers' Accident Insurance Institute (until retirement, July 1922). Close friendship with Max Brod.

Writes "On Mandatory Insurance in the Construction Industry."

1909 Publication of eight prose pieces in Hyperion.

September: At Riva and Brescia with Max and Otto Brod. Writes "The Aeroplanes at Brescia."

1910 Member of circle of intellectuals (Mrs. Berta Fanta).

March: Publication of five prose pieces in Bohemia.

May: Beginning of the Diaries (quarto notebooks; last entry, June 12, 1923).

Yiddish theater company from Eastern Europe performs.

October: Paris, with Max and Otto Brod.

December: Berlin.

1911 January-February: Business trip to Friedland and Reichenberg.

Summer: Zurich, Lugano, Milan, Paris (with Max Brod). Plans to work with Brod on a novel, "Richard and Samuel."

Alone in a sanatorium in Erlenbach near Zurich. Travel diaries.

Writes "Measures to Prevent Accidents [in Factories and Farms]" and "Workers' Accident Insurance and Management."

1911-12 Winter: Yiddish theater company. Friendship with Yiddish actor Isak Löwy; study of Jewish folklore; beginning of a sketch on Löwy.

1911-14 Working on Amerika (main parts written 1911-12).

1912 First studies of Judaism (H. Graetz, M. I. Pines).

February: Gives lecture on the Yiddish language.

July: Weimar (Goethe's town, with Max Brod), then alone in the Harz Mountains (Sanatorium Just). Meets Ernst Rowohlt and Kurt Wolff, joint managers of Rowohlt Verlag.

August 13: Meets Felice Bauer from Berlin, in the house of Max Brod's father in Prague.

August 14: Manuscript of Meditation sent to the publisher.

September 20: Beginning of correspondence with Felice Bauer.

September 22-23: "The Judgment" written.

September-October: Writes "The Stoker" (or "The Man Who Disappeared") which later became first chapter of Amerika.

October 1912 to February 1913: Gap in the diaries.

November: "The Metamorphosis" written.

1913 January: Publication of Meditation.

February 1913 to July 1914: Lacuna in productivity.

Easter: First visit to Felice Bauer in Berlin.

Spring: Publication of The Judgment.

May: Publication of "The Stoker."

September: Journey to Vienna, Venice, Riva. At Riva, friendship with "the Swiss girl."

November: Meeting with Crete Bloch, friend of Felice Bauer. Beginning of correspondence with her. [She becomes mother of his son, who died before reaching the age of seven, and of whom K. never knew.]

1914 Easter: In Berlin.

April: Engagement to Felice Bauer in Berlin.

July 12: Engagement broken.

Summer: "Memoirs of the Kalda Railroad" written. Hellerau, Lübeck, Marienlyst on the Baltic (with Ernst Weiss).

October: "In the Penal Colony" written.

Fall: Begins writing The Trial.

Winter: "Before the Law" (part of The Trial) written.

1915 January: Renewed meeting with Felice Bauer (in Bodenbach).

Continues working on The Trial.

Receives Fontane Prize for "The Stoker."

February: Moves from parents' home into rented rooms: Bilekgasse and Langengasse.

Journey to Hungary with sister Elli.

November: Publication of The Metamorphosis.

December (and January 1916): "The Village Schoolmaster" ["The Giant Mole"] written.

Meets Georg Mordecai Langer.

1916 July: Meeting with Felice Bauer in Marienbad.

August 20: Draws up a list of reasons for and against marriage.

Stories written, later collected in A Country Doctor.

Winter: Bothered by noise, K. moves to remote Alchemists' Lane, Prague.

1917 First half: "The Hunter Gracchus" written.

Learning Hebrew.

Spring: "The Great Wall of China" written.

July: Second engagement to Felice Bauer.

August: Begins coughing blood.

September 4: Diagnosis of tuberculosis. Moves to sister Ottla in Zürau.

September 12: Leave of absence from office.

November 10: Diary entries break off.

End of December: Breaking of second engagement to Felice Bauer.

Fall and winter: Aphorisms written (octavo notebooks).

1918 January to June: Zürau. Reading Kierkegaard.

Spring: Aphorisms continued.

Prague, Turnau.

November: Schelesen. Meets Julie Wohryzek, daughter of a synagogue custodian. A project for "The Society of Poor Workers," an ascetic society.

1919 January 10: Diary entries are resumed.