Letters to a Young Poet

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0394741048 ISBN 13: 9780394741048

Publisher: Vintage, 1986

The ten letters collected here are arguably the most famous and beloved letters of our century. Written when Rainer Maria Rilke was himself still a young man with most of his greatest work before him, they are addressed to a student who had sent Rilke some of his work, asking for advice about becoming a writer. The two never met, but over a period of several years Rilke wrote him these ten letters, which have been enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of readers for what Stephen Mitchell calls the "vibrant and deeply felt experience of life" that informs them.

From the Back Cover:

"The common reader will be delighted by Stephen Mitchell’s new translation of that slim and beloved volume by Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet . . . the best yet."
--Los Angeles Times

From the Inside Flap:

Letters written over a period of several years on the vocation of writing by a poet whose greatest work was still to come.