In a letter to Felice Bauer dated November 11, 1912, Kafka referred to this novel as a "story" that is designed to go on indefinitely. In the same letter, he also mentioned the title of the whole: "Der Verschollene" - the only authentic title formulation for this novel, which later became famous under the title "Amerika." "It is the first major work," he added, "in which I feel sheltered after 15 years of almost hopeless torment for the past 1.5 months." The novel presented here appears as Kafka left it: in the textual form of the manuscript, without normalizations or modernizations - and as a torso. For this "story designed to go on indefinitely" has indeed never found an end or a definitive conclusion.