About
Rahel Antonie Friederike Varnhagen (German: [ˈʁaːɛl ˈfaʁnhaːɡən]) (née Levin, later Robert; 19 May 1771 – 7 March 1833) was a German writer who hosted one of the most prominent salons in Europe during the late-18th and early-19th centuries. She is the subject of a celebrated biography, Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess (1957), by Hannah Arendt. Arendt cherished Varnhagen as her "closest friend, though she ha[d] been dead for some hundred years". The asteroid 100029 Varnhagen is named in her honour.