Arnim was born in
Berlin, descending from a
Brandenburgian Uradel noble family first mentioned in 1204. His father was the
Prussian chamberlain (
Kammerherr) Joachim Erdmann von Arnim (1741–1804), royal envoy in
Copenhagen and
Dresden, later active as the director of the Berlin
Court Opera. His mother, Amalia Caroline von Labes (1761–1781), died three weeks after Arnim's birth. Arnim and his elder brother Carl Otto spent their childhood with their maternal grandmother Marie Elisabeth von Labes, the widow of
Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf from her first marriage, in
Zernikow and in Berlin, where he attended the
Joachimsthal Gymnasium. In 1798 he went on to study law, natural science and mathematics at the
University of Halle. His early writings included numerous articles for scientific magazines. His first major work,
Theorie der elektrischen Erscheinungen (Theory of electrical phenomena) showed a leaning to the supernatural, common among the
German romanticists. In
Halle he associated with the composer
Johann Friedrich Reichardt, in whose house he became acquainted with the
Romantic poet
Ludwig Tieck. From 1800 he continued his studies at the
University of Göttingen, though, having met
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and
Clemens Brentano, he inclined from natural sciences towards literature. Arnim received the degree of a
Doctor of Medicine in 1801, but never practiced. He went on to travel through Europe with his brother from 1801 to 1804. He met his later wife
Bettina in
Frankfurt, travelled down the
Rhine Valley together with Clemens Brentano, visited
Germaine de Staël in
Coppet,
Friedrich Schlegel and his wife
Dorothea in
Paris, and continued his journey to
London and Scotland. Arnim was influenced by the earlier writings of Goethe and
Herder, from which he learned to appreciate the beauties of German traditional legends and
folk songs. Back in Germany, he began forming a collection of these and in 1805 first published the result, in collaboration with Clemens Brentano, under the title
Des Knaben Wunderhorn. He went to see Goethe in
Weimar, in order to edit the collection. In Frankfurt he met with the jurist
Friedrich Carl von Savigny, the beginning of an enduring friendship. Arnims's editorial work was increasingly affected by the
Napoleonic Wars. Upon the Prussian defeat in the 1806
Battle of Jena–Auerstedt, he followed the royal court to
Königsberg, where he joined the circle of Prussian reformers around
Baron vom Stein. In 1807 he moved back to Weimar and
Kassel, where he visited the
Brothers Grimm, and finally to
Heidelberg. He and Brentano completed the second and third volume of their folk song collection and from 1808 together with
Joseph Görres published the important romantic
Zeitung für Einsiedler (Newspaper for Hermits) in
Heidelberg in 1808. The Heidelberg Romanticist circle also included Tieck, Friedrich Schlegel,
Jean Paul,
Justinus Kerner, and
Ludwig Uhland. From 1809 Arnim again lived in Berlin, however, his plans to enter the Prussian civil service failed. In 1810 he affianced Brentano's sister Bettina, who won wide recognition as a writer in her own right. They married on 11 March 1811; their daughter
Gisela (one of seven children) became a writer as well. Shortly after their marriage the couple went on to visit Goethe in to Weimar, however, the reunion was overshadowed by a heated quarrel between Bettina and Goethe's wife
Christiane. In Berlin, Achim worked on
Heinrich von Kleist's legacy and founded the patriotic
Deutsche Tischgesellschaft association of Christian men. He remained connected with the Prussian patriots such as
Adam Heinrich Müller and
Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and even commanded a
Landsturm battalion during the
German Campaign of 1813. From October 1813 he acted as publisher of the Berlin newspaper "The Prussian Correspondent", until he fell out with his predecessor
Barthold Georg Niebuhr in February 1814. While his wife stayed in Berlin, Arnim in 1814 retired to
Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, his family home, where he lived until his death from a
stroke in 1831. His output, published in newspapers, magazines and almanacs as well as self-contained books, included novels, dramas, stories, poems and journalistic works. Following his death, his library was taken over by the Weimar court library. ==Works==