The son of a railway official who longed to be noble. The Paris flâneur who started a family in the North German moors. The war hater who wrote one of the most popular heroic poems of World War I. The homeless wanderer who preferred to reside in castles. A favorite among women, who valued monastic seclusion. The tower dweller in the Valais who created one of the most famous cycles of poetry in world literature. But what do we really know about the man Rainer Maria Rilke? Few other authors seem better suited to be portrayed en face than Rilke - even his appearance fascinated many contemporaries: his ice-blue eyes, his seal-like mustache, and his sensitive hands. His unmoored life between Prague, Berlin, Munich, Worpswede, Vienna, Venice, Rome, and Duino appeared enigmatic. Above all, however, it exerted...