Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch Martínez (Madrid 1806 – Madrid 1880), versatile author and representative of the moderate, Catholic Liberalism of the first half of the 19th century in Spain, was born to a cabinet maker of German birth and a Spanish mother, followed some higher education and, after initially following his father’s trade, became a journalist, critic and writer from 1830 onwards. Influenced by Agustín Durán’s conservative, Schlegel-derived Romanticism, he too sought to express what he believed to be his country’s “national character”.

Hartzenbusch’s literary career started with adaptations of French dramatic works and reworkings of Spanish Golden Age comedies. This prepared him for his own dramatic writing. His literary breakthrough came in 1837 with the premiere of his Romantic history-drama Los amantes de Teruel (“The lovers of Teruel”), based on a popular legend with a medieval setting.

Hartzenbusch maintained a prodigious productivity in many genres, primarily theatre, where he specialized in historical drama. He also achieved some success in the most popular theatrical genre of his time, the “comedy of magic”, with La redoma encantada, premiered in 1839. Besides theatre, Hartzenbusch wrote poetry, costumbrismo essays in the vein of Mesonero Romanos, and prose fiction; he also engaged in translations, criticism and textual editing, and was an active figure in Madrid literary life. He was a member of the city’s Ateneo and Liceo, and helped establish the Academia Alemana-Española (1840, with Julius Kühn). In 1844 he became the first officer of the National Library. Later, in 1856, he was appointed head librarian and, finally, in 1862, its director, a position he held until 1876. Hartzenbusch was elected a member of the Real Academia de la Lengua in 1847. In theatrical life, Hartzenbusch served on the Advisory Board on Theatre Arrangements and was a member of the Advisory Board on Theatres (1852); he was a director of the Society of Dramatic Authors in 1855 and a Theatre Censor in the following year. These various facets make him one of the most representative men of letters of 19th-century Spain.

As a poet he took inspiration mainly from German authors like Lessing and Gellert (Ensayos poéticos y artículos en prosa, 1843), whom he also translated, and from the Spanish tradition, and specialized in adapting fables to contemporary Spanish society (Fábulas puestas en verso castellano, 1848). Hartzenbusch was a distinguished translator of European, and particularly German, poetry; his translations and adaptations of French theatre range from Molière, Voltaire and Beaumarchais to contemporaries like Alexandre Dumas (père and fils), Hugo and Scribe. Translations from Italian include two versions of Il cinque maggio by Alessandro Manzoni, in 1847 and 1864.

As an editor and scholar, Hartzenbusch was a key figure in the revival of Spanish classical theatre. As early as 1827 he started reworking Golden Age comedies, a venture that continued until 1862. He started editing and restoring Spanish classical theatre texts in 1839, the year that saw the first of the twelve volumes of Teatro escogido de Tirso de Molina (1839-42). Most prolifically and valuably, he collaborated on the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles project launched in 1846 by Manuel Rivadeneyra and Bonaventura Carles Aribau. Hartzenbusch tackled the most important authors: Tirso de Molina (1848); Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1848-50); Juan Ruiz de Alarcón y Mendoza (1852); and his favourite author, Lope de Vega (1853-60). A total of 298 comedies were edited by him with the aim of making the texts accessible to readers. His painstaking work revealed a thorough knowledge of the subject, as well as an awareness of his own limitations. The same principles inspired his next venture, also sponsored by Rivadeneyra: the publication of Don Quixote in two formats – octavo and folio – printed in Argamasilla de Alba in 1863. Possibly more important are Las 1633 notas on Don Quixote (1874), a supplement to the Barcelona edition of the novel published between 1871 and 1872, in which Hartzenbusch collected all the comments left out of his previous editions.