Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke 1910-1926

Transl. by Jane Bannard Greene and M.D. Herter Norton.. Some letters were first printed in The Kenyon Review, Autumn 1947.

The period [covered by the present volume of letters] falls into four distinct divisions: the years before the first World War, when a harrowing reaction from the psychological strain of writing the Malte drove Rilke in mounting desperation to country after country, person after person; the wartime period itself, in which the flare-up of excited, almost exalted response quickly gave way to a persisting dismay at the phenomenon of war...; the search in Switzerland, from 1919 to 1921, for congenial surroundings in which to bring to their conclusion the long-despaired-of Elegies; and finally, the end of the quest, Muzot, which was to be his home for the brief remainder of his days.'

Hardcover