German novelist and dramatist, born at Rostock on the 24th of August 1837, the son of a professor at that university. Having received his early education at the gymnasium of his native town, he entered the university and engaged in the study of law. This, however, he soon abandoned in favour of philology and history, and continued these studies in Berlin and Munich. After taking the degree of doctor of philosophy, he joined the staff of the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich. He travelled abroad for a time and in 1871 settled in Vienna, where, two years later, he married the actress, Auguste Baudius. In 1881 Wilbrandt was appointed director of the Hofburg theatre in succession to Franz Dingelstedt, an office he held until 1887. In this year he returned to his native town of Rostock, and remained actively engaged in literary production. Wilbrandt is distinguished both as a dramatist and novelist. His merits were acknowledged by the award of the Grillparzer prize on two occasions—in 1875 for the tragedy Gracchus der Volkstribun, and in 1890 for his dramatic poem Der Meister von Palmyra, while in 1878 he received the Schiller prize for his dramatic productions. He died at Rostock on the 10th of June 1911.
Among his plays may be mentioned the tragedies, Arria und Messalina (1874), Nero (1876); Kriemhild (1877); the comedies Unerreichbar (1870), Die Maler (1872), Jugendliebe (1873) and Der Kampf ums Dasein (1874); and the drama Die Tochter des Herrn Fabricius (1883). Among his novels the following deserve notice:—Meister Amor (1880); Hermann Ifinger (1892); Der Dornenweg (1894); Die Osterinsel (1895); Die Rothenburger (1895); and Hildegard Mahlmann (1897). He also published translations of Sophocles and Euripides (1866), Gedichte (1874, 1889 and 1907), and a volume of Erinnerungen (1905).
See V. Klemperer, Adolf Wilbrandt. Eine Studie über seine Werke (1907), A. Stern, Studien zur Literatur der Gegenwart (3rd ed., 1905), E. Scharrer-Santen, Adolf Wilbrandt als Dramatiker (1912), and Jahrbuch und Deutscher Nekrolog, XVI., Totenliste 1911, p. 84.
