One of Germany's greatest poets, Johann Christian Friedrich H?lderlin (1770?1843) was also a prose writer of intense feeling, intelligence and perception. This new translation of selected letters and essays traces the life and thoughts of this extraordinary writer. H?lderlin's letters to friends and fellow writers such as Hegel, Schiller and Goethe describe his development as a poet, while those written to his family speak with great passion of his beliefs and aspirations, as well as revealing money worries and, finally, the tragic unravelling of his sanity. These works examine H?lderlin's great preoccupations ? the unity of existence, the relationship between art and nature and, above all, the spirit of the writer.