Duino Elegies

FIRST US EDITION. The ten elegies, among Rilke’s best known and most influential works. Begun in 1912 while Rilke was a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis at Duino Castle near Trieste, the sequence was interrupted, both physically and spiritually, by the turmoil of the First World War and not completed until 1922, with the collection published the following year. German text with English translation, introduction, and commentary by J. B. Leishman and Stephen Spender. The earliest translation of the Duino Elegies was by Edward and Vita Sackville-West, published in 1931 by Hogarth Press, though only in a (very attractive and very collectible) limited edition, produced at the Cranach Press. This translation was published in the UK by The Hogarth Press, also in 1939. BOOK: Publisher’s cream coloured boards with red and blue design to spine and front cover, purple endpapers; page edges toned, bookshop label to front pastedown. DJ: Unclipped dust jacket with $3.00 price to inner label; yellowed and toned throughout, nicked to spine ends, split in spine neatly reinforced verso.…