[Autograph Letter, Signed, to Nathan Sulzberger]

Bozen [Bolzano], Italy, [2 April 1897].. One and one half pages (22 lines), in ink on recto and verso of top panel of folded octavo sheet of engraved letterhead of the "Hotel Victoria Bozen." Horizontal fold for mailing, short separation from outer margin at fold, otherwise very good, accompanied by the original mailing envelope, addressed in Rilke's hand. Rilke writes to his Munich friend, the German- American writer and future chemist/inventor, Nathan Sulzberger, then staying at the Britannia Hotel in Vienna. Sulzberger, raised in comfortable circumstances, had invited Rilke for a three week tour of Italy, but Rilke thought the offer too generous and they settled on a shorter stay in Venice. Rilke stayed with him for three days, then traveled to Bozen where he wrote Sulzberger this letter of thanks. George Schoolfield, in YOUNG RILKE AND HIS TIME (pp.281-2), discusses the context of this letter and its implications, as does Freedman, LIFE OF A POET: RAINER MARIA RILKE, (pp. 57, 58 and 73).