The New Student's Reference Work/Arnim, Bettina von

Arnim, Bettina von, famous for her acquaintance and correspondence with Goethe, was born at Frankfort, April 4, 1785. Her intimacy with Goethe lasted from 1807 to 1811. Shortly after his death she published a mass of correspondence said to have passed between them. There is no doubt that Bettina put a large amount of new matter into Goethe's letters, and some of them he never wrote at all. However, Bettina's freshness and power as a writer make them interesting and valuable. Her correspondence with the friend of her youth, Caroline von Günderode, and with her brother Clemens Brentano, probably equally fictitious, while not as famous as her correspondence with Goethe, is for high value. She died in 1859.