Dies Buch gehört dem König

Dies Buch gehört dem König, a book by Bettina von Arnim, in which she develops her views on society, politics, and religion. It was published in 1843. The king of the title is Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, who gave her permission before the book was written to dedicate it to him.

The greater part of the book is a dialogue in which the chief participant is Goethe's mother (Frau Rat), to whom Bettina von Arnim attributes her own religious, political, and social views. Though not irreligious, she is hostile to the existing religions and has a keen appreciation of the misery of the oppressed and the arrogance of the aristocracy. It is the duty of the monarch, she considers, to put right the social injustice of the realm. An appendix headed ‘Erfahrungen eines jungen Schweizers im Vogtlande’ documents the misery of a Berlin slum outside the Hamburger Tor. In 1849 Bettina von Arnim published Gespräch mit Dämonen, a further plea for social reform, of which the central feature is a dialogue between the sleeping king and his good spirit (Dämon).