Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague in 1875 and traveled throughout Europe for much of his adult life, returning frequently to Paris. There he came under the influence of the sculptor Auguste Rodin and produced much of his finest verse, most notably the two volumes of
New Poems as well as the great modernist novel
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Among his other books of poems are
The Book of Images and
The Book of Hours. He lived the last years of his life in Switzerland, where he completed his two poetic masterworks, the
Duino Elegies and
Sonnets to Orpheus. He died of leukemia in December 1926.
