Arnim, Bettina von

Arnim, Bettina von

 orig. Elisabeth Katharina Ludovica Magdalena Brentano

Bettina von Arnim, engraving after Armgass von Arnim's copy of a miniature by an unknown artist.

(credit: Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd.)

(born April 4, 1785, Frankfurt am Main [Germany]—died Jan. 20, 1859, Berlin) German writer. Her best-known works are reworked records of her correspondence with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Karoline von Günderode, and her brother Clemens Brentano, much of it fictitious but written in a brilliantly vivid, uninhibited style.