RILKE RAINER MARIA: (1875-1926) Lot n° 1367

RILKE RAINER MARIA: (1875-1926) Austrian poet and novelist. A.L.S., Rainer Maria Rilke, to one side of a plain correspondence card, Rue de l'Abbe de l'Epee, Paris, 5th February 1903, to a gentleman, in German. Rilke asks his correspondent if they could send two copies of Geschichten vom Lieben Gott ( 'Stories of God') within the next few days, and concludes by expressing his gratitude. With a pencil annotation and a single diagonal pencil stroke through Rilke's text, indicating that the request was actioned. Two file holes to the left edge, not affecting the text or signature, otherwise EX Rilke's correspondent is likely to have been Rudolf von Poellnitz, the founder and director of the German publishing house Insel, based in Leipzig. In 1902 Insel had published a second, modified edition of Geschichten vom Lieben Gott. Stories of God was written by the twenty-three year old Rilke in 1899 and the collection of tales were inspired by a trip to Russia that the young poet had made in the previous year. All of the great themes of Rilke's later powerful and complex poetry can be found in Stories of God , yet their charming, folk-tale like quality has made them among the most accesible of Rilke's works, admired by all ages. The present letter dates from Rilke's first stay in Paris, where he arrived in August 1902 to work on his monograph of Auguste Rodin, later becoming the sculptor's secretary (1905-06).