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The second volume of the Weimarer Arnim-Edition contains all of Arnim's published essays on natural science. With his summaries and theoretical essays on electricity, magnetism, and galvanism he concentrated on the significant contemporary discoveries. He commands a truly encyclopaedic mastery of the scientific knowledge of his times. Together with Johann Wilhelm Ritter, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, and Alexander von Humboldt, Arnim had by 1800 established himself as a fully recognized member of the scientific community.

The first time that the manuscripts of Achim von Arnim’s work on the natural sciences have appeared in print, this volume represents one of the most comprehensive resources for understanding natural science in the early romantic era and is an important contribution to the history of science. The manuscripts comprise drafts of published works, unpublished projects, lexicographically arranged notes, excerpts, reviews, and translations.

The “Zeitung für Einsiedler” was one of the most original periodicals produced by German Romanticism. It was published by Achim von Arnim, who deliberately launched the paper without daily news stories as a kind of anthology. This intention was gradually overtaken by a literary feud with the translator of Homer and classicist Johann Heinrich Voß, and his newspaper, the “Morgenblatt”. Von Arnim published some of his own poems and the poetry of Bettine and Clemens Brentano, among others. The newspaper solicited scholarly articles and translations, including some received from the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and from Joseph Görres. The “Zeitung für Einsiedler” printed many translations of contemporary European literature. It also was the first to publish some of the best-known German fairy tales. The commentary included in this volume provides a historical and critical perspective for all the texts and illustrations.

Ludwig Achim von Arnim's adaptation of the medieval saga of the female pope Johanna is typically romantic in the way it combines epic, lyrical, and dramatic elements. This is the first edition of the work to provide an authentic version based on the manuscripts. The work itself caused a considerable stir amongst contemporary authors, with Jacob Grimm even comparing it to Goethe's »Faust«. It is certainly one of the most original and substantial creations by Arnim or any other German romantic writer.

This is the first attempt ever made to provide a comprehensive portrayal of the Deutsche Tischgesellschaft founded by Achim von Arnim (1781–1831) and existing from 1811 to at least 1834. This Berlin society contributed decisively to the ‘invention of the German nation’. Prominent representatives of leading circles in society were united in a Christian German, Prussian nationalist and German nationalist ideology. Women and Jews were excluded. The speeches that have come down to us testify to a major cultural program with which Arnim and Clemens von Brentano continued the politicization of aesthetics that they initiated with Des Knaben Wunderhorn.

This volume publishes four months of the Berlin daily newspaper The Prussian Correspondent – from October 1, 1813, to January 31, 1814 – as volume XII of the historical-critical Weimar edition of Arnim’s works. These were the months when the rulers and peoples of Europe came together to defeat the conqueror Napoleon – from the Battle of Leipzig to the crossing of France's borders.

The “Schaubühne”, the 13th volume in the series, contains the first printing of the ten dramas from the “Schaubühne” and handwritten drafts of the plays; in addition, it presents and explicates documents relating to the genesis and reception of the plays and the source texts used by Arnim, together with a comprehensive commentary on both the totality of the works and on individual passages.

The volume is an annotated collection of the extant and reconstructed letters written (107) and received (94) by Arnim in his school and university years up to the beginning of his educative travels. A substantial number of the texts are published here for the first time. The letters and notes are not only of interest for the information they give us about Ludwig Achim von Arnim (1781-1831) himself. His major correspondents ranged from natural scientists working in various disciplines and playing a pioneering role in scientific innovations taking place around 1800 to friends at school and university and relatives belonging to the higher echelons of the Prussian state in an age of thoroughgoing reform.

The volume contains Arnim's correspondence during his educational journey (1802-1804) and comprises 117 letters from his own hand (that have either come down to us or can be reconstructed) and 89 letters addressed to him, all provided here with detailed notes. A substantial portion of the edited texts is printed here either for the first time or for the first time in full (29 by Arnim and 28 to him). Arnim corresponded with members of his family and with acquaintances he made during the journey, among them some very striking women (Madame de Staël, Bettina Brentano, etc.). Most of the letters stem from the early exchange with Arnim's friend Clemens Brentano. This correspondence during the travel years was destined to become one of the most extraordinary examples of its kind in the whole history of German literature. Its significance rests largely in the magnificently unconventional nature of the letters, which rank as an unrivaled testimony to the phase of German Romanticism between the decline of the Jena period and the emergence of the Heidelberg period, a testimony that has yet to be fully appreciated for its originality. The letters are mainly literary in character, not merely because they contain poems, but above all in the way they reflect the idea of 'universal poetry' prominent in the aesthetics of early German Romanticism.

This volume contains letters to and from Arnim originating from the time of the preparation, publication and early reception of the first volume of "Des Knaben Wunderhorn". Arnim’s main correspondent during these two years was Clemens Brentano. Also of key importance are the correspondence with Brentano’s wife Sophie, née Mereau, and his sister Bettina as well as the letters to Goethe. In almost all cases the handwritten letters are the basis for the texts, which have been edited and annotated with great accuracy.

This volume contains the letters Arnim wrote and received between the beginning of 1807 and the end of 1808, thus concluding the known correspondence from his travel years. Of those with whom Arnim corresponded, the most important were Franz Brentano, Brentano’s sister Bettina, the jurist Friedrich Carl von Savigny, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and Joseph Görres. The volume consists of some 500 edited letters, sketches, and excerpts.