Although nothing at all is known about Niclas Ulenhart himself, his Historia von Isaac Winckelfelder und Jobst von der Schneid (History of Isaac Winckelfelder und Jobst von der Schneid, 1617), published half a dozen times during the seventeenth century, has an important place in the reception of Miguel de Cervantes in Germany and the inauguration of a native Schelmenroman (picaresque novel). Not only was Ulenhart the first German author to adapt a Cervantes work into a language other than Spanish, but he adapted it so successfully to a German environment that it took until 1868 to discover Ulenhart's model.

Several generations of scholars have speculated about Ulenhart's life, but no information has come to light apart from the internal evidence the text of his novel provides. Early in the twentieth century Ulenhart was thought to be the grandson of the Augsburg Reformation printer Philipp Ulhart, but no record of an...