Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salome: The Correspondence »

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) is considered one of the greatest poets who ever wrote in the German language. His most famous works are Sonnets to Orpheus, The Duino Elegies, Letters to a Young Poet, and The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.

Edward Snow is an award-winning translator of the poetry and prose of Rilke. He is a professor at Rice University and lives in Houston, Texas.

Michael Winkler has written extensively on modern poetry and fiction. He is a professor at Rice University and lives in Houston, Texas.

The complete extant correspondence between a key fin-de-siècle intellectual and one of the most revered poets of the twentieth century.

The New Yorker

When Rilke first met Salomé, in 1897, he was twenty-one, an aspiring poet, and she was a married woman of thirty-six who had published a multitude of books and essays on philosophical and literary subjects.Their correspondence was initially one-sided—Rilke, besotted, sent a torrent of mail, while Salomé wished she could make him “go completely away”—but the two developed a passionate partnership as friends, lovers, confidants, and counsellors. This collection of some two hundred letters, written over nearly three decades, enriches our picture of Rilke and Salomé with curious details: Rilke makes arrangements for Salomé’s beloved dog, in advance of a visit; Salomé, practicing in mid-life as a psychoanalyst, claims success treating patients with Rilke’s poems: “They heard your tone as that of Life.”