The Book of Hours

“The most trustworthy and exhilarating of Rilke’s contemporary translators.” ―Michael Dirda, Washington Post

A gorgeous new translation of one of the strongest inaugural works in twentieth century poetry.

Long hailed as a masterwork of modern German literature, The Book of Hours (1905) marks the origin of Rainer Maria Rilke’s distinctive voice and vision―where clarity of diction meets unexpected imagery and first-person poetry discovers its full lyric possibility. In these audacious poems, a devout but candid speaker addresses an ultimately unknowable deity, passing through love, fear, guilt, anger, bewilderment, loneliness, tenderness, and exaltation in his search for meaning.

In this dual-language edition, Edward Snow, “the most trustworthy and exhilarating of Rilke’s contemporary translators” (Michael Dirda, Washington Post), makes Rilke’s achievement accessible as never before in English. Snow retains a striking fidelity to the German text while also conveying the captivating psychological presence that animates Rilke’s best poems.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), the author of Sonnets to Orpheus, Duino Elegies, and Letters to a Young Poet, was one of the greatest poets of the German language.

Edward Snow has received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for his Rilke translations. A professor at Rice University, he lives in Houston, Texas.