Rainer Maria Rilke, already famous, received letters from a nineteen-year-old poet seeking advice. His responses, written between 1903 and 1908, became one of the most beloved books about the artistic vocation. Rilke writes about solitude, patience, the necessity of writing from genuine inner need, the importance of loving the questions themselves. The prose is tender and searching. The letters were not written for publication, and their intimacy is part of their power. Every aspiring writer finds something essential here.