The Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was an avid letter writer, and more than 7.000 of his letters have survived. One of his best known collection is Rilke’s Letter to a young woman, published in 1930. This collection gathers several letters that Rilke wrote to Lisa Heise between 1919 and 1924. Rilke was in his 40s at the time of the first letter; Heise was 26 . Her husband of three years had left her and her 2-year-old son. Though Rilke and Heise never