Born in 1875, the German lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke published his first collection of poems in 1898 and went on to become renowned for his delicate depiction of the workings of the human heart. These translations by M.D. Herter Norton offer Rilke's work to the English-speaking world in an accurate, sensitive, modern version. Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), the author of Sonnets to Orpheus , Duino Elegies , and Letters to a Young Poet , was one of the greatest poets of the German language. M.D.H. Norton (1894–1985) was cofounder of W. W. Norton & Company, now the oldest and largest publisher owned wholly by its employees.