An important partial estate of Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) is located in the Swiss Literary Archive in Bern. The so-called Bern Pocket Book, a black notebook measuring 14 x 8 cm, is one of the most significant pieces from this collection. The manuscript contains the second part of the draft of Rilke's novel "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge" (1910). As can be inferred from a letter dated October 20, 1909, to his publisher Anton Kippenberg, there must have been at least one other, unpreserved notebook that contained the beginning of the novel's text. The Bern Pocket Book offers unique insights into Rilke's working methods and the writing process of the novel. Here, Rilke does not appear as an original genius, but rather as an author who made extensive changes and experimented with variations in his manuscript. Thus, this draft manuscript reveals a.