David Wyllie

On his thirtieth birthday, the chief cashier of a bank, Josef K., is unexpectedly arrested by two unidentified agents from an unspecified agency for an unspecified crime. The agents' boss later arrives and holds a mini-tribunal in the room of K.'s neighbor, Fr ulein B rstner. K. is not taken away, however, but left "free" and told to await instructions from the Committee of Affairs. He goes to work, and that night apologizes to Fr ulein B rstner for the intrusion into her room. At the end of the conversation he suddenly kisses her...

From its gripping first sentence onward, this novel exemplifies the term "Kafkaesque." Its darkly humorous narrative recounts a bank clerk's entrapment — based on an undisclosed charge — in a maze of bureaucratic roadblocks. This is the least expensive edition available of one of the 20th century's most important novels.

Among the most important and influential philosophical works in Western thought: Euthyphro, exploring the concepts and aims of piety and religion; Apology, a defense of the integrity of Socrates' teachings; Crito, exploring Socrates' refusal to flee his death sentence; and Phaedo, in which Socrates embraces death and discusses the immortality of the soul.