Freiherr von Ludwig Achim Arnim

Born in Berlin on January 26, 1781, Achim von Arnim became one of the central writers of German Romanticism. He studied natural sciences at Halle and Göttingen, but literature drew him more strongly, and he went on to write poetry, novels, plays, and short fiction.

He is especially remembered for Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the influential collection of German folk poetry he assembled with Clemens Brentano. Arnim was part of the Heidelberg Romantic circle, which looked to folk tradition, myth, and the inner life as sources for modern literature.

Arnim also wrote imaginative fiction of his own, often blending everyday reality with dreamlike or supernatural elements. He married the writer Bettina von Arnim in 1811, and he died on January 21, 1831, at Wiepersdorf.