The extraordinary story of one of the most fruitful friendships in modern arts and letters.
Rainer Maria Rilkes Letters to a Young Poet is one of the most beloved books of the twentieth century. It has sold millions of copies and inspired generations with its galvanizing wisdom on how to lead an artistic life. In You Must Change Your Life debut author Rachel Corbett tells the remarkable long-buried story of where Rilkes ideas originated.
In 1902 Rilke broke and suffering from writers block accepted a commission to go to Paris to research and write a short book about the sculptor Auguste Rodin. The two were almost polar opposites: Rodin in his sixties notoriously carnal revered; Rilke in his twenties delicate unknown. Nonetheless they fell into an instantaneous friendship and would work closely together as master and disciple for the next few years as Rodin showed Rilke how to become the writer he wished to be.
With verve and great insight Corbett transports readers to turn-of-the-twentieth-century Paris to explore this surprising friendship and the development of their influential ideas about art and creativity. She captures the dawn of modernism with appearances b