'Stephanie Dowrick's gift is a capacity for sharing with readers her lifetime's pleasure in poetry and the company of one of the greatest of poets.'David Malouf, novelist and poet'This book is lovely: serious, informed, honest, warm, delightful to read. Stephanie Dowrick has accomplished something wonderful, bringing us into the company of the most human of men and into the presence of his astonishingly beautiful poetry.' John Armstrong, philosopher and writerIn the Company of Rilke is rare book a about a rare poet. Rainer Maria Rilke was a giant of twentieth-century writing who is increasingly a visionary voice for our own time, captivating readers not only with his brilliance but also his fearlessness about the 'deepest things'. Speaking through his own contradictions and ambivalences, he gives readers a profound understanding of the complex beauty of human existence.Here, questions matter more than answers. Here, a poet can speak directly to God while also doubting God. Astonishingly, this is the first major study of Rilke from a spiritual perspective yet the greatest of Rilke' s gifts was to show how inevitably life centres upon a profound myster - to which we can freely open ourselves. Drawing on her own deep understanding of the gifts of reading, as well as her personal spiritual seeking, Stephanie Dowrick offers an intimate understanding of this most exceptional poet and his transcendent, piercingly beautiful work.