The Book of Hours

Long hailed as a masterwork of modern German literature, The Book of Hours (1905) marks the origin of Rainer Maria Rilke's distinctive voice and vision--where clarity of diction meets unexpected imagery and first-person poetry discovers its full lyric possibility. In these audacious poems, a devout but candid speaker addresses an ultimately unknowable deity, passing through love, fear, guilt, anger, bewilderment, loneliness, tenderness, and exaltation in his search for meaning.

In this dual-language edition, Edward Snow, "the most trustworthy and exhilarating of Rilke's contemporary translators" (Michael Dirda, Washington Post), makes Rilke's achievement accessible as never before in English. Snow retains a striking fidelity to the German text while also conveying the captivating psychological presence that animates Rilke's best poems.

Author: Rainer Maria Rilke
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 04/07/2026
Pages: 368
Weight: 0.65lbs
ISBN: 9781324123460