Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke

Published by Insel Verlag, '201. Bis 230' (Ritzer, Rainer Maria Rilke Bibliographie, E56).

Bound in half green shagreen, smooth spine with minor rubbing to spine-ends, a scratch at the head of one joint, marbled paper boards, top-edge gilt, contemporary binding.

Rare and precious signed and dated inscribed copy by Rainer Maria Rilke to August Friedrich Ammann:
"To Mr. August F. Ammann In exchange, a small version of the great Reiss ins Globte Land (almost contemporary in content): Rainer Maria Rilke (Muzot, March 17, 1922)."
Herrn August F. Ammann Als eine kleine, der grossen „Reiss ins Globte Land" (inhaltlich fast zeitgenössische) Gegen - Gabe : Rainer Maria Rilke (Muzot, am 17. März 1922).

Superb autograph inscription from Rilke to the uncle of Nanny Wunderly-Volkart, a young Swiss admirer and patron with whom he maintained an extensive correspondence.

This important handwritten dedication by Rilke refers to a chronicle written by the dedicatee's ancestor, a 17th-century traveler in the Orient, whose fate mirrored that of the poet's own ancestor, Cornet Christoph Rilke
The poet wrote this inscription in March 1922, emerging from an intense creative period at Muzot—his mensis mirabilis—during which he completed his famous Sonnets to Orpheus and several of the Duino Elegies. He inscribed it in "the beautiful reprint with which the Cornet surpassed the 200,000-copy milestone" (Letter to Nanny, December 13, 1921). This splendid epic in lyrical prose, composed 'without a single erasure, in the rush of a single night' in the autumn of 1899, gained increasing success throughout the century thanks to this Insel-Bücherei edition, conceived by Stefan Zweig. It is easy to see why this text, brilliantly weaving together the essential themes of Rilke's poetry, became, for generations of readers—and perhaps still is—a "model of life," as Philippe Jaccottet put it. Youth, love, heroism, and premature death, shaped by Rilke's rhythmic cadences, inspired numerous musical adaptations and even a film adaptation in 1955.
The Swiss August Friedrich Ammann (1850-1924), a distinguished bibliophile as indicated by his imposing pastedown bookplate (one of many he had designed), was the uncle of Nanny Wunderly-Volkart, the poet's most loyal supporter during his last years in Switzerland, to whom he bequeathed Muzot's belongings. It was thanks to her that the poet moved to his haven of solitude in the Valais facilitated by her cousin, the Winterthur industrialist Werner Reinhart, who acquired his Muzot Residence. We know that August Ammann was among its first visitors: his signature, dated May 2, 1922, inaugurates the tower's famous guestbook.
Rilke and Ammann met in Sierre in 1921, as confirmed by Rilke's letters to Nanny, and likely shared glorious stories of their ancestors. Ammann's forebear, Hans-Jakob Ammann, a doctor from Zurich, had travelled to the East during the Ottoman wars, while Christoph Rilke—whose name the poet found in his family archives—had died fighting the Turks. "Genealogy was one of the many paths Rilke explored in his quest to connect himself with the external world; studying it had led him, as a young man, to discover a document about Cornette Christoph Rilke that inspired his famous early work. [...] The fact that, at the same time, and especially in his later years, he desperately sought tradition, domesticity, and love once again demonstrates the deep ambivalence of his relationship with life" (J. R. von Salis).
Both author and dedicatee were driven by a profound reverence for the memory of their ancestors: while this rediscovery provided Rilke with the inspiration for his remarkable work of poetic prose, Ammann republished the travel account of Hans Jakob Ammann, Reiss ins Globte Land (Zürich: Polygraphisches Institut, 1919-1921). He likely gifted Rilke a copy. In return (als [...] Gegen-Gabe), Rilke offered him this Chant du Cornette, humbly describing it in his inscription as "small", a sort of reduction of Hans Jakob Ammann's great work (Als eine kleine, der grossen 'Reiss ins Globte Land'). Rilke viewed the histories of these two men as "almost contemporary," a perspective that wavered between historicism and aestheticism—even though Ammann's journey predated Christoph Rilke's tragic fate by fifty years.

A rare inscription from the Dichter des Cornet ("poet of the Cornet") on his timeless masterpiece, which brought him both fame and literary immortality, bridging the epic legacies of two ancestral figures—adventurers and warriors of the 17th century.

Provenance: from the library of August F. Ammann's library with his engraved bookplate on the pastedowns; then his daughter Molly Ammann (inscription in pencil under the bookplate).