Rainer Maria Rilke is arguably the most important modern German-language poet. His New Poems, Duino Elegies, and Sonnets to Orpheus are pillars of 20th-century poetry. Yet his earlier verse is less known. The Book of Hours, written in three bursts between 1899 and 1903, is Rilke's most formative work, covering a crucial period in his rapid ascent from fin-de-siecle epigone to distinctive modern voice. The poems document Rilke's tour of Russia with Lou Andreas-Salome, his hasty marriage and fathering of a child in Worpswede, and his turn toward the urban modernity of Paris. He assumes the...

This selection includes poems from all stages of Rainer Maria Rilke's career, beginning with the delicate works of his early years, through the poems he wrote in French, and concluding with his mature masterpieces Sonnets to Orpheus and the Duino Elegies.

'What matters is to live everything. Live the questions for now.' This title features profound and lyrical letters the author wrote to a young friend with advise on writing, love, sex, suffering and the nature of advice itself.

From one of the most famous poets in history comes a new selection of writings to bereaved friends and acquaintances, providing comfort in a time of grief and words to soothe the soul. Throughout his life, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke addressed letters to individuals who were close to him, who had contacted him after reading his works, or who he had met briefly - anyone with whom he felt an inner connection. Within his vast correspondence, there are about two dozen letters of condolence. In these direct, personal and practical letters, Rilke writes about loss and mortality, assuming the...