The Castle
Valancy Stirling is 29, unmarried, and has never been in love. Living with her overbearing mother and meddlesome aunt, she finds her only consolation in the "forbidden" books of John Foster and her daydreams of the Blue Castle--a place where all her dreams come true and she can be who she truly wants to be. After getting shocking news from the doctor, she rebels against her family and discovers a surprising new world, full of love and adventures far beyond her most secret dreams.
Themes & atmosphere
Also by Franz Kafka
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What you might want to know about The Castle
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A man known only as K. arrives at a snowy village to take up a post as land surveyor. The castle on the hill that hired him will neither confirm nor deny the job, and the village runs entirely on its impenetrable rules.
Multiple novels share this title. The most commonly searched is The Castle by Franz Kafka (Das Schloss, 1926), a posthumously published novel left unfinished at his death. The metadata above lists L.M. Montgomery in error.
Yes. The Castle was first published in 1926 and is in the public domain in most jurisdictions. Free editions of older translations are available legally through Project Gutenberg. Modern translations remain copyrighted.
The Castle is 257 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Castle takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
The Castle is a standalone novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery, not part of a series.
The Castle is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.