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In February 1922, in a small stone tower called the Château de Muzot in the Swiss Valais, Rainer Maria Rilke finished in a few weeks the ten Duino Elegies he had begun ten years earlier, and wrote all 55 Sonnets to Orpheus alongside them. He was born in Prague in 1875, wrote in German, lived for years in Paris, worked for a time as Auguste Rodin’s secretary, and died in Switzerland in 1926, at fifty-one. His most widely read book was not one he published: ten letters to a young officer cadet, collected three years after his death as Letters to a Young Poet. This guide covers his eight key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 key books · 1903–1952 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Rilke’s key books are Auguste Rodin (1903), The Book of Hours (1905), New Poems (1907–1908), his only novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910), the Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus (both 1923), and two books of letters published after his death, Letters to a Young Poet (1929) and Letters on Cézanne (1952). Start with Letters to a Young Poet: ten short letters on solitude, patience and the questions without answers, and the clearest way into the ideas behind the poems.
Where to Start with Rilke
If you have never read Rilke
→ Letters to a Young Poet (1929) — ten short letters, readable in an afternoon.
If you want the poetry
→ New Poems (1907) — then the Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus, written in the same month.
If you make things and want his ideas on looking
→ Letters on Cézanne (1952) — then Auguste Rodin.
If you want his novel
→ The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910) — his only one, and his longest prose work.
8 Rainer Maria Rilke Books, in Order
Auguste Rodin
In 1902 Rilke, then 27, was commissioned to write about the sculptor Auguste Rodin, then 62, for a German series of art monographs directed by the art historian Richard Muther. He travelled to Paris that summer and watched Rodin at work; the essay, published in 1903, is about the patient daily labour behind the sculptures more than about the sculptures themselves. He wrote a second essay on Rodin four years later, and in 1905–1906 worked as Rodin’s secretary until Rodin dismissed him.
The Book of Hours
Three cycles of prayer-like poems addressed to God, written in three short bursts: in Berlin-Schmargendorf in 1899, in Westerwede in 1901 and in Viareggio in 1903. The first cycle followed his journey to Russia with Lou Andreas-Salomé, to whom the book is dedicated. Published by Insel Verlag in 1905, it was his first book with the publisher that would issue nearly all his later work.
New Poems
Two volumes, published by Insel in 1907 and 1908, the second dedicated to Rodin. Rilke called these poems Dinggedichte, “thing-poems”: each concentrates on one object, animal or figure until the poem becomes an object in itself. They include “The Panther”, written after the caged animal in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and “Archaic Torso of Apollo”, which ends “You must change your life.”
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
Rilke’s only novel, begun in Rome in 1904 and published by Insel in 1910. It is made of 71 diary-like entries by Malte, a 28-year-old poet from a noble Danish family living in poverty in Paris: the first part records the city’s sick, poor and dying, the rest his childhood memories of Denmark. Le Monde included it in its 100 Books of the Century; the first English translation, in 1930, was titled The Journal of My Other Self.
Duino Elegies
Ten long elegies on death, love, angels and what it means to be human. Rilke began them in January 1912 at Duino Castle on the Adriatic, as the guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis; by his own account the opening line, “Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’ hierarchies?”, came to him in the wind on the cliffs. War and long silences followed, and he finished the cycle at Muzot in February 1922. Insel published it in 1923, dedicated to the princess.
Sonnets to Orpheus
Fifty-five sonnets, 26 in the first part and 29 in the second, written at Muzot in February 1922 in about three weeks, in the same burst that completed the Elegies; Rilke saw the two works as a twin birth. He wrote them as a memorial for Wera Ouckama Knoop, a dancer and playmate of his daughter Ruth, who had died in 1919 at 19. They take the myth of Orpheus, the singer who went down to the dead, as their figure for poetry and change. Published by Insel in 1923.
Letters to a Young Poet
Ten letters, written between 1903 and 1908, to Franz Xaver Kappus, who had first written to Rilke in 1902 as a 19-year-old cadet at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt, sending his poems. Rilke says little about the poems and much about solitude, patience, love and doubt. Kappus published the letters with Insel in 1929, three years after Rilke’s death; M. D. Herter Norton’s English translation followed in 1934. Kappus’s own letters to Rilke appeared in English in 2020.
Letters on Cézanne
Letters Rilke wrote to his wife, the sculptor Clara Westhoff, in Paris in 1907, most of them in the autumn, when he went back almost daily to the large Cézanne exhibition at the Salon d’Automne, a year after the painter’s death. They record how Cézanne looked at apples, faces and colour, and what a writer might learn from it; passages reappear in Malte Laurids Brigge. Clara Rilke edited them as Briefe über Cézanne in 1952; Joel Agee’s English translation appeared in 1985.
In What Order to Read Rilke
None of Rilke’s books depends on another, so publication order is not required. It does show the development: the devotional voice of The Book of Hours, the turn to exact observation after Rodin in New Poems and Malte, and the late cycles of 1922. The two books of letters were published after his death but were written in the middle of that development, between 1903 and 1908.
A common route is to read the letters first, because they put into prose the ideas the poems work through, then New Poems, where every poem has a concrete object, and only then the Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus. For the poetry, a bilingual edition lets you hear the German alongside the English.
A reading path
1. Letters to a Young Poet (1929)
2. New Poems (1907–1908)
3. Duino Elegies (1923)
4. Sonnets to Orpheus (1923)
5. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910)
Rilke’s Other Works: a Short Bibliography
Beyond the 8 key books: 11 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Early poetry
4
4 books · 1894–1898
- 1894Leben und Liederhis first collection of poems
- 1895Larenopferearly poems
- 1897Traumgekröntearly poems
- 1898Adventearly collection
Later poetry
3
3 books · 1902–1926
- 1902The Book of ImagesDas Buch der Bilder, expanded in 1906; includes “Autumn Day”
- 1909Requiemtwo requiems, one for the painter Paula Modersohn-Becker
- 1926Vergerspoems written in French in his last years
Stories and prose
2
2 books · 1900–1906
- 1900Stories of Godfirst published as Vom lieben Gott und Anderes
- 1906The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilkea short prose poem about a young cornet killed in battle; the 1912 Insel reissue sold 5,000 copies in three weeks
Letters
2
2 books · 1928–1936
- 1928Letters to Auguste RodinBriefe an Auguste Rodin
- 1936Collected LettersGesammelte Briefe, six volumes, 1936–1939
The years · 1875–1926
Quick facts about Rainer Maria Rilke
- Known for
- Poetry of close looking and inner change, above all the Duino Elegies, and the advice on solitude and patience in Letters to a Young Poet.
- 1875
- Born in Prague
- 1902
- Moves to Paris to write about Rodin
- 1922
- Finishes the Duino Elegies at Muzot
- 1926
- Dies at Val-Mont, Switzerland
- Born
- 4 December 1875, Prague, then part of Austria-Hungary; christened René
- Died
- 29 December 1926, Val-Mont sanatorium near Montreux, Switzerland, of leukaemia
- Buried
- Raron, in the Swiss Valais, on 2 January 1927
- Language
- German; late poems in French
- Married
- The sculptor Clara Westhoff, in 1901; their daughter Ruth was born that December
- Worked
- Secretary to Auguste Rodin in Paris, 1905–1906
- Archive
- Fondation Rilke, Sierre, and the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern
The red mark is February 1922, when Rilke finished the Duino Elegies and wrote the Sonnets to Orpheus at Muzot.
How Rilke Writes: Learning to See
Rilke’s early books, such as The Book of Hours, are written in a flowing, musical voice that addresses God directly. Watching Rodin work in Paris from 1902 changed his method: he set himself to look at a single thing — a panther, a statue, a flamingo — for as long as it took to render it exactly. The result was the Dinggedichte of New Poems, and the line Malte writes near the start of the novel: “I am learning to see.”
His late poetry moves from things to the largest questions: the angels of the Duino Elegies stand for a beauty and completeness humans cannot bear, and the poems ask what human life is for if it passes so quickly. The Sonnets to Orpheus answer more lightly, in praise of change and song. Much of his thinking is also in his letters, which he wrote in great numbers and which are often read alongside the poems.
Rilke is often read by people who do not otherwise read poetry, because the letters give his ideas in plain prose. For poets and writers with a similar attention to solitude, nature and the inner life, see Authors like Rainer Maria Rilke.
Frequently asked questions about Rilke’s books
How many books did Rilke write?
He published more than a dozen books of poetry and prose in his lifetime, and his letters fill many volumes. This page lists eight key books, from Auguste Rodin (1903) to Letters on Cézanne (1952), and eleven further works in the bibliography, including The Book of Images and Stories of God.
What are Rilke’s books in order?
Auguste Rodin (1903), The Book of Hours (1905), New Poems (1907 and 1908), The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910), Duino Elegies (1923), Sonnets to Orpheus (1923), Letters to a Young Poet (1929) and Letters on Cézanne (1952). The last two were published after his death in 1926.
Where should I start with Rilke?
With Letters to a Young Poet: ten short letters, written between 1903 and 1908, on solitude, patience, love and uncertainty. For the poetry, start with New Poems, then read the Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus together.
Did Rilke write a novel?
One: The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910), begun in Rome in 1904. It is written as 71 diary-like entries by a 28-year-old Danish poet living in poverty in Paris, moving between what he sees in the city and memories of his childhood. It is Rilke’s only novel and his longest prose work.
What are the best Rilke books?
The four most often named are the Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus, the late cycles both written in February 1922; New Poems, which contains “The Panther” and “Archaic Torso of Apollo”; and Letters to a Young Poet, his most widely read book. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge is the essential prose work.
What is Rilke’s most famous book?
Letters to a Young Poet (1929) is the most widely read; the Duino Elegies (1923) is usually considered his major poetic work. His best-known single poem is “The Panther” from New Poems.
Which Rilke translation should I read?
There is no single standard. For Letters to a Young Poet: M. D. Herter Norton (1934), Stephen Mitchell (1984), Charlie Louth (Penguin, 2011) or Damion Searls (2020, with Kappus’s letters). For the Duino Elegies: the first English version was by Edward and Vita Sackville-West (1931); later ones include J. B. Leishman and Stephen Spender (1939), David Young, Edward Snow’s bilingual edition (2000) and Alfred Corn (2021). For Malte Laurids Brigge: Burton Pike (2008), Michael Hulse (Penguin, 2009) and Edward Snow (2022). For Letters on Cézanne: Joel Agee (1985).
What is Letters to a Young Poet about?
Rilke’s replies to Franz Xaver Kappus, a 19-year-old military cadet who sent him poems in 1902 and asked for his judgement. Rilke declines to judge and writes instead about turning inward, enduring solitude, loving difficult things and being patient with unanswered questions. Kappus published the ten letters in 1929.
Did Rilke support Mussolini?
In letters of early 1926 to the Milanese aristocrat Aurelia Gallarati Scotti, Rilke praised Mussolini and described fascism as a healing force; she disagreed, and they argued the point by letter. Earlier he had sympathised with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Bavarian Soviet Republic of 1919. Older biographies tended to pass over the letters; they were discussed again around his 150th anniversary in 2025–2026.
How did Rilke die?
Of leukaemia, diagnosed only a few weeks before his death on 29 December 1926 at the Val-Mont sanatorium above Montreux. A popular story says he died from a rose thorn; he had pricked his hand gathering roses, but the underlying illness was the leukaemia. He is buried at Raron in the Valais, under an epitaph he wrote himself, beginning “Rose, oh reiner Widerspruch”.
Footnotes
- Rainer Maria Rilke — Wikipedia
- Duino Elegies — Wikipedia
- The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge — Britannica
- Letters to a Young Poet, dated letters — Poetry in Translation
- Rilke on Rodin — Getty, Lives of the Artists
- On Rilke’s flirtations with Mussolini and fascism — Bard College, 2026
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. … Live the questions now.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, letter of 16 July 1903, translated by M. D. Herter Norton
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