 Rilke 's reputation in the English @-@ speaking world rests largely on the popularity of Duino Elegies . The collection has been translated into English over twenty times since it was first published in 1931 by London 's Hogarth Press in England as <unk> <unk> : Elegies from the Castle of Duino in a translation by Edward and Vita Sackville @-@ West . It was first translated for the American market in 1939 in a translation by J. B. Leishman and Stephen Spender published by New York 's W. W. Norton & Company . Other translations have included those by poet David Young ( 1978 ) , Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter ( 1989 ) , poet Galway Kinnell with Hannah Liebmann ( 1999 ) , Stephen Cohn ( 1989 ) , poet Alfred Poulin ( 1975 ) , and poet Gary Miranda ( 1981 ) . 
