Letters to a Young Poet

Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague, Czech Republic, in 1875. His father was an officer in the army, and he was at first sent to a military school. After that, largely on his own, he studied philosophy, history, literature, and art in Prague, Munich, and Berlin. He started writing poetry at an early age, and became famous, first in Europe and then worldwide, for his poetry, novels, and letters. He traveled widely throughout Germany, Russia, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Egypt, and Scandinavia.

Rilke married Clara Westhoff in 1901, and had a daughter, Ruth, in 1902. After the birth of their daughter, they moved to Paris, where Clara worked with the famous sculptor Auguste Rodin, and Rilke wrote a monograph on him. He died in France in 1926, and is buried beside the little church of Raron, overlooking the Rhone Valley.