Gedichte. Übertragen durch Rainer Maria Rilke

Leipzig: Im Insel Verlag, 1925. First edition, hand-printed at the Cranach Presse by Harry Kessler for the Insel Verlag, with initials by Eric Gill, this being copy number XVII of 20 copies “fur den Handel Bestimmten Exemplaren”. Von Mises 172. Although the colophon states that the first fifty copies were printed on Japan, the roman-numeraled copies, or at least this one, was printed on laid büttenpapier. Presentation copy, inscribed on the second blank leaf by Rilke “À Monsieur et Madame Lucien Henraux / aux Dieux-Lares d’une commune admiration, très amicalement, R. M. Rilke, (Muzot, en Novembre 1925)”. Lucien Henraux was a French industrialist. His wife, Marie Bernieres-Henraux, was a sculptor and a student of Auguste Rodin, for whom Rilke had acted as secretary. A near-fine copy, preserved in a cloth clamshell box. 4to, original gilt-stamped vellum-backed boards. A near-fine copy, preserved in a cloth clamshell box.