Books by Rainer Maria Rilke
“They feel really warm and compassionate, and not performative at all. There’s this great sympathy, compassion, love, and support for this child that on some level he need not have any concrete connection to. Rilke died soon after writing the last of those letters. He was moved to make this connection by a young person in his life who was not his own child but someone else’s, his protégé, and someone he wanted to inspire with his words.” Read more...
The Best Literary Letter Collections
Lucas Zwirner, Artists & Art Critic
Interviews where books by Rainer Maria Rilke were recommended
The best books on Vermeer and Studio Method, recommended by Jane Jelley
Painting is not what it used to be. With materials and photography close to hand, it’s easy to forget the sheer labour involved in producing an Old Master canvas. What does studio method – the making of masterpieces – tell us about artistic genius, then and now? Painter Jane Jelley considers the question using Johannes Vermeer as her starting point.
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1
Letters to a Young Painter
by Rainer Maria Rilke -
2
The Death and Letters of Alice James: Selected Correspondence
by Alice James -
3
Letters to Felice
by Franz Kafka -
4
Letters: 1925-1975
by Hannah Arendt & Martin Heidegger -
5
Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence
by Elizabeth Bishop & Robert Lowell
The Best Literary Letter Collections, recommended by Lucas Zwirner
The Best Literary Letter Collections, recommended by Lucas Zwirner
The next release in the ekphrasis series from David Zwirner Books is Oscar Wilde’s The Critic as Artist, including an introduction by Michael Bracewell and a colour portrait of Wilde by Marlene Dumas. Head of Content Lucas Zwirner talks to Five Books about the inspiration he’s drawn from literary letters and how they inform the editorial direction of the publishing house.