Rilke, René [later Rainer] Maria:

$5,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

TRAUMGEKRÖNT. NEUE GEDICHTE. The scarce first edition of Rilke's third published collection of verse (translated into English as "Dream-crowned"). This is a presentation copy from Rilke, signed in full and inscribed by him to his Munich friend, the German-American writer and future chemist/inventor, Nathan Sulzberger. The inscription incorporates four lines of verse: "...Und müssen Sie auf durch lhr Leben [/] fremd aller Schöpferfreude gehn -- [/] ist lhnen doch die Gift Gegeben, [/] ein frohes Schaffen zu verstehen!" The designation 'Band I' appears in the upper margin of the title leaf. The author was briefly a very close friend to Sulzberger, an American student then studying chemistry in Munich, and sent him warmly inscribed early copies of Larenopfer as well as this copy of Traumgekrönt, as evidenced by the 1896 date on this inscription. Rilke's poem "Mein Ruder sang: Poppé, fahr zu!" in the following year's Advent is dedicated to Sulzberger. The next summer, the author would spend three days in Venice with Sulzberger—his first visit to a city that would become a notable artistic muse. The pair's friendship is treated with some detail in George Schoolfield's Young Rilke and His Time (2009), which directly references this inscription.

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