RILKE, Rainer Maria.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Advent; [together with: autograph letter signed, to his friend Nathan Sulzberger]. First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author to his friend on the first blank, "Herrn Nathan Sulzberger, in treuer Dankbarkeit und Ergebenheit! Rainier Maria Rilke". Rilke's letter, dated 21 December 1898, presents the book to Sulzberger. Sulzberger (1874-1954) hosted Rilke in Venice during the poet's first visit to the city. He was a wealthy American studying chemistry in Munich, where the two met as students, and they lived in style for three days at the Hotel Britannia on the Canale Grande. This letter came at the height of their friendship, noting that Sulzberger is the dedictee of the "Venedig" sequence on page 37, and effusing "I owe Venice to you, and I need not explain what it means to owe Venice to someone". Sulzberger later returned to New York where he became a writer and commercial chemist. This first visit to Venice was influential in Rilke's developing poetics, with much language and imagery from his letters at the time surfacing in his poetry and prose over the following few years. This letter is published in Briefe, Verse, und Prosa aus dem Jahre 1896 (Verlag der Johnnepresse, New York, 1946, p. 56).

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