Karl August Varnhagen von Ense

Karl August Varnhagen von Ense (February 21, 1785 - 1858), German biographer, was born at Düsseldorf.

He studied medicine at Berlin, but devoted more attention to philosophy and literature, which he afterwards studied more thoroughly at Halle and Tübingen. He began his literary career in 1804 as joint-editor with Adelbert von Chamisso.

He made some reputation as an imaginative and critical writer, but he is famous chiefly as a biographer. He possessed a remarkable power of grouping facts so as to bring out their essential significance, and his style is distinguished for its strength, grace and purity. Among his principal works are:

• Goethe in den Zeugnissen der Mitlebenden (1824)
• Biographische Denkmale (5 vols., 1824-30; 3rd ed., 1872)
• biographies of General von Seydlits (1834), Sophia Charlotte, queen ot Prussia (1837), Field-Marshal Schwerin (1841), Field-Marshal Keith (1844), and General Billow von Dennewitz (1853).

His Denkwürdigkeiten und vermischte Schriften appeared in 9 vols. in 1843-59, the two last volumes appearing after his death. His niece, Ludmilla Assing, between 1860 and 1867, edited several volumes of his correspondence with eminent men, and his Tagebücher (14 vols., 1861-70). Blätter aus der preussischen Geschichte appeared in 5 vols. (1868-69); his correspondence with Rahel in 6 vols. (1874-75); and with Carlyle (1892).

His selected writings appeared in 19 vols. in 1871-76. There is also an extensive literature dealing with Rahel Varnhagen von Ense; see especially her husband's Rahel, ein Buch des Andenkens (3 vols., 1834) Aus Rahels Herzens-leben (1877); E Schmidt-Weissenfels, Rahel und ihre Zeit (1857); Briefwechsel zwischen Karoline von Humboldt, Rahel und Varnhagen von Ense (1896); O Berdrow, Rahel Varnhagen (1900).

Reference

• This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.