Contemplation (German: Betrachtung) is a collection of eighteen short stories by Franz Kafka written between 1904 and 1912. It was Kafka's first published book, first printed end of 1912 (with the year given as "1913") in the Rowohlt Verlag on an initiative by Kurt Wolff.
Eight of these stories were published before under the title Betrachtungen (Contemplations) in the bimonthly Hyperion. Some of the stories are also included, in whole or in part, in the collection Description of a Struggle (1958). All the stories appear in The Complete Stories of Franz Kafka (1971) and were published in a single volume edition by Twisted Spoon Press. They have also been translated by Malcom Pasley and are available in the Penguin Books edition, The Transformation and Other Stories (1992).
Betrachtung has also been translated to Meditation.