Sonnets to Orpheus: Written as a Monument for Wera Ouckama Knoop

1936

Brasch PT2635 I65 S66 1936

London: Published by Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) is considered one of the greatest lyric poets of modern Germany. In 1928, Brasch bought an Insel Verlag edition of poems by Rilke. Two years later, in April 1930, he bought a German edition of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. From this edition, he translated passages for the second issue of Phoenix, perhaps the earliest translations of this writer to appear in English. Brasch was enthusiastic about the Letters, noting: ‘Yes they were addressed to me!’ The influence lasted, for Brasch collected and read other Rilke titles, including this Leonard and Virginia Woolf published edition of 1936.