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The Book of Images

collection of poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ53294029 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Book of Images (German: Das Buch der Bilder) is a collection of poetry by the Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926). It was first published in 1902 by Axel Juncker Verlag.

It consists of individual poems written from 1899 and forward. An extended version was published in 1906, after Rilke had written The Book of Hours, with which scholars link The Book of Images as a phase in the poet's writing.

Editorial summary

“The Book of Images” enters the record as collection of poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Book, Images and poetry can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1875, 1926, 1902, 1899—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1902. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Book, Images and poetry.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“The Book of Images” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Book, Images and poetry provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q53294029. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1875, 1926, 1902 and 1899.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Book of Images”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Book of Images primary sources, The Book of Images archive and Book research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Book of Images” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.