Wilhelmine von Hillern
{{Short description|German actress and novelist}}
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Wilhelmine von Hillern (11 March 1836 Munich – 15 December 1916 Hohenaschau) was a German actress and novelist.
Biography
She was the daughter of the novelist Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer. She was brought up in Berlin, became an actress at Gotha (1854), and married the prominent jurist von Hillern at Freiburg im Breisgau in 1857. Her husband died 8 December 1882. After that, she lived chiefly at Oberammergau and Tutzing.
Her principal novels and short stories were produced during the 1860s and 1870s. One of them, [https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/books/HoherAlsDieKirche_10864893 Höher als die Kirche] (Higher Than the Church; a tale of Freiburg im Breisgau in Reformation days, 1877) was quite well known in America by reason of the fact that it was frequently read as a text by students of elementary German. It is a comparatively insignificant work, however, by no means so important as the novels, Ein Arzt der Seele (A Doctor for the Soul; a satire of bluestockings, Berlin 1869), Die Geier-Wally (The Vulture Maiden, Berlin 1875), Und sie kommt doch (The Hour Will Come, Berlin 1879), and Ein Blick ins Weite (Black Forest sketches, 1897). One of her novels, Only a Girl, was translated into English by Annis Lee Wister in 1870.
Von Hillern's Die Geyer-Wally became the subject for the Italian composer Alfredo Catalani's last and most successful opera.
The memoirs and biographies of Sabine Baring-Gould contain firsthand descriptions of von Hillern.
References
- {{Cite Americana|wstitle=Hillern, Wilhelmine von}}
- {{Cite NIE|wstitle=Hillern, Wilhelmine von|year=1905}}
External links
- {{Gutenberg author | id=24819}}
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=Wilhelmine von Hillern}}
{{The Vulture Maiden}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hillern, Wilhelmine von}}
Category:German women novelists
Category:German stage actresses
Category:Actresses from Munich
Category:19th-century German actresses
Category:19th-century German writers